Disclosed are computers and methods of operating those computers. In the methods, a computer in a touch lock state displays a lock screen image showing a cover layer superimposed over, and obscuring, a background layer. A user enters a touch input to a touch screen of the computer, thereby specifying a portion of that touchscreen. The lock screen image is then modified so that the cover layer does not obscure the background layer in the specified portion of the touchscreen. The cover layer in the region of the touchscreen that is not specified in the touch input continues to obscure the background layer in those regions. If the portion of the touchscreen specified by the touch input exceeds a threshold amount the computer may be changed from being in a touch lock state to being in a touch unlock state.

Many conventional computers, in particular portable computers, for example smartphones, tablet computers, etc., include touchscreens.
In order to prevent a computer performing an action or operation in response to an accidental touch input to that computer's touchscreen, many computers have a touch lock function. In other words, many computers may be placed in a "locked" state whereby the computer ignores most touch inputs to the touchscreen.
The exception is an unlock touch gesture. When the computer recognizes an unlock touch gesture, the computer "unlocks" the touchscreen. In other words, a user of the computer has to change that computer from being in its locked state to being in an unlocked state. The unlocked computer supports full operation of both the display layer and the touch layer of the touchscreen.


A retainer for gathering together a shoulder strap of a first garment and a shoulder strap of a second garment and for holding one or more shoulder straps in place on a wearer's shoulder. The retainer includes a body having stabilizing structure for holding the retainer stable on the wearer's shoulder; and grip structure attached to the body for gripping one or more shoulder straps and for securing one or more shoulder straps to the body.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to a retainer for holding one or more garment shoulder straps in place.
2. Information Disclosure Statement
A preliminary patentability search in class 2, subclasses 336 and 337, and class 24, subclasses 182, 519, 563 and 532, produced the following patents which may be material to the present invention:
Baldwin, U.S. Pat. No. 1,489,731, issued Apr. 8, 1924, discloses a shoulder strap holder adapted to be stitched or otherwise secured to the underside of a gown, dress or blouse at the shoulder in such a manner as the straps of any or all undergarments worn with or under such gown, dress or blouse can be inserted within the holder and securely held in place in such a position that the shoulder straps will not become exposed by reason of the fact that the gown, dress or blouse slips or shifts to different positions on the wearer's shoulders.
Fellows, U.S. Pat. No. 1,544,303, issued Jun. 30, 1925, discloses a lingerie clasp assembly including a spring-type clasp for receiving the shoulder straps of an undergarment, and a snap member for being sewed to an outer garment to hold the clasp in place on the outer garment.
Robb, U.S. Pat. No. 1,589,228, issued Jun. 15, 1926, discloses a lingerie clasp for being sewed to the inner face of the shoulder portion of a dress to retain straps of lingerie or under garments on the shoulders of the wearer and concealed under the dress.
Raymond, U.S. Pat. No. 1,593,776, issued Jul. 27, 1926, discloses a lingerie clasp for being anchored firmly to a dress having arms that can be sprung apart to receive the shoulder straps of lingerie.
Mahoney, U.S. Pat. No. 1,641,004, issued Aug. 30, 1927, discloses a shoulder strap holder for armpits shields to retain the straps of lingerie, brassieres, etc., on the shoulders of the wearer while the arm pit shield is attached to the holder to prevent the arm pit shield from being worked out of position.
Stader, U.S. Pat. No. 2,046,589, issued Jul. 7, 1936, discloses a shoulder strap holder for being secured to an outer garment and for holding the shoulder straps of inner garments in place relative to the outer garment.
Patten, U.S. Pat. No. 2,049,660, issued Aug. 4, 1936, discloses a shoulder strap retaining device for being stitched to a first garment and for retaining shoulder straps of a second garment.
Cleasby, U.S. Pat. No. 2,444,806, issued Jul. 6, 1948, discloses a shoulder strap combination for brassieres and foundation garments including a lock device for allowing a support pad to being attached to the existing brassiere or foundation garment shoulder strap for comfort.
Nothing in the known prior art discloses or suggests the present invention. More specifically, nothing in the known prior art discloses or suggests a retainer for holding a shoulder strap of a first garment in place on a wearer's shoulder, including a body having stabilizing means for holding the retainer stable on the wearer's shoulder; and grip means attached to the body for gripping one or more shoulder straps and for securing one or more shoulder straps to the body.


A host computer has a file with a subroutine required for operation of an application on a target. The file is dynamically loaded to memory of the target, whereby the file has an entry point at a dynamically-determined location. Data representative of the address of the entry point is stored in memory at a predetermined location.

During development and testing of an embedded computer system, especially an embedded microprocessor-based computer system, it is normally necessary to connect the system to a host computer so that an engineer can debug the embedded system. Debugging software on the host computer provides access by the engineer into the embedded system. Typically, the engineer uses the host computer and debugging software to set break points which stop threads of execution on the target embedded system, monitor registers in the target, monitor memory states and monitor input and output data. The engineer may also restart threads which have been previously stopped and perform a variety of other tasks including rebooting the target computer using the host.
Although in normal operation the embedded system may be virtually self-sufficient it may be found during debugging that errors such as hardware bugs are discovered.
It is often possible to provide specific work-round subroutines which enable the device being debugged to continue to operate while avoiding the error areas. However, it is undesirable to completely rewrite the software being run by this device, due to the possibility of incurring further errors.
As used herein, the term 'digital signal processor' includes microprocessors in general and other like digitally operating processing devices.
Thus it is accordingly an object of the present invention to at least partially overcome the difficulties of the prior art.

Methods and apparatus for dynamically loading a file on a target computer system

Abstract: The application is then run on the target, causing the application to determine the entry point, thereby accessing the subroutine and allowing the subroutine to run.


A light emitting device includes a first semiconductor layer of a first conductivity type, an active region, and a second semiconductor layer of a second conductivity type. First and second contacts are connected to the first and second semiconductor layers. In some embodiments at least one of the first and second contacts has a thickness greater than 3.5 microns. In some embodiments, a first heat extraction layer is connected to one of the first and second contacts. In some embodiments, one of the first and second contacts is connected to a submount by a solder interconnect having a length greater than a width. In some embodiments, an underfill is disposed between a submount and one of the first and second interconnects.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to high-powered light emitting diodes, more particularly to improving the thermal properties of high-powered light emitting diodes with flip-chip architecture.
2. Description of Related Art
Light emitting diodes ("LEDs") are solid-state light sources with multiple advantages. They are capable of providing light with high brightness reliably and thus find applications in displays, traffic lights, and indicators, among others. An important class of light emitting diodes is fabricated from one or more Group III elements, such as gallium, indium, or aluminum, and the group V element of nitrogen. These "III-nitride" LEDs are capable of emitting light in the green, blue, or even ultraviolet regime of the spectrum, and thus have many promising applications. Other suitable materials systems for fabrication of light emitting diodes include the III-phosphide, III-arsenide and II-VI materials systems.
LEDs are often fabricated by epitaxially depositing an n-type region, an active region and a p-type region on a substrate. Contacts, typically metal, are formed on the n-type region and the p-type region. During operation, the contacts provide current to the n- and p-sides of the device. In some types of devices, for example III-arsenide devices, the growth substrate is often removed after growth, an n-contact is deposited on the exposed n-type region, and a p-contact is deposited on the p-type region. In other types of devices, a portion of the active region and the p-type region are etched away, exposing a portion of the n-type region. The p-contact is formed on the remaining portion of the p-type region and the n-contact is formed on the exposed portion of the n-type region, such that both contacts are formed on the same side of the device. In such a device, the light may be extracted from the device through the contacts or through the side of the device without the contacts. Devices that extract light through the contacts are generally disfavored because in order to provide enough current to the device, the typically metal contacts must be thick enough that they are essentially opaque. Devices that extract light through the side of the device without the contacts are referred to as flip chips. III-nitride devices are often grown on sapphire substrates and included in devices in flip chip configuration.
In general, as the amount of current provided to the device increases, more electrons and more holes are provided to the active region, resulting in more photons being emitted. In III-nitride devices however, as the current density increases, eventually efficiency decreases, then failure mechanisms such as cracking of the sapphire substrate or the device layers are observed.

High-powered light emitting device with improved thermal properties


A method for assembling a substantial barrier to the flow of liquid in a circumferentially-extending liquid conduit groove of a mold insert includes forming recesses or undercuts by undercutting the sidewalls of the liquid conduit groove, inserting a plate-like liquid dam within the liquid conduit groove, and clamping the dam in the liquid conduit groove by the use of a pair of locking screws or pins that extend through bores in the dam into engagement with inwardly-facing surfaces of the undercuts. The relationship between the inwardly-facing undercut surfaces and the locking members is preferably such that there is a progressively increasing interfering engagement of the locking members with the undercut surfaces resulting in increasing clamping pressures applied to the dam assemblies.

This invention relates to a method of manufacturing improved mold inserts. Mold inserts of the type to which this invention pertains are used in machines for injection molding plastic workpieces, but this invention may be useful in other fields, such as die casting and rubber molding.
This invention is disclosed for use with mold inserts of the type shown in my U.S. Pat. No. 4,828,479, granted May 9, 1989, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,959,002, granted Sep. 25, 1990, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein. (The '479 and the '002 patents are hereinafter referred to as "said patents".) Said patents disclose generally cylindrical mold inserts for injection mold machines which have a generally cylindrical liquid channel section with a liquid conduit groove extending circumferentially around the liquid channel section. A liquid barrier is located in the groove so that the groove is double-ended, one end constituting a liquid inlet end and the other end constituting a liquid outlet end. A mold machine with which an insert is used has inlet and outlet connectors aligned with the inlet and the outlet ends of the groove so that a liquid, which is usually water, can be circulated around the insert for cooling or heating portions of the insert.
The mold inserts to which said patents relate are used in matched pairs, one being mounted on an "A" plate of an injection molding machine and the other mounted on its confronting "B" plate. Proper orientation of inserts on their respective "A" and "B" plates is maintained by interfitting keys and notches. The liquid inlets and outlets for both the "A" and the "B" plates are usually located on the same side of a master frame. If one were able to look at the liquid barriers of a pair of mutually confronting inserts from the outside of a master frame, both liquid barriers would appear to be on the same side of the master frame. However, one looking at the "A" plate insert from its front face would observe that its liquid barrier is on one side of the insert and, upon looking at the "B" plate insert from its front face, would observe that its liquid barrier is on the opposite side. Thus, for example, if the liquid barrier of the "A" plate insert is located at the 3:00 o'clock position, as viewed from the front face of the insert, then the liquid barrier on the "B" plate insert would be at the 9:00 o'clock position, as viewed from its front face.
Until machined to form the shapes of the mold cavities and cores, the only difference between an insert usable with an "A" plate of a mold machine and one usable with a "B" plate for the same machine is in regard to the location of the inlet and outlet barrier. This difference creates an inventory problem for a supplier of inserts. The practice has been to inventory inserts without the barriers and to weld dams that form the barriers into the liquid grooves when the inserts are removed from inventory for use or sale. The welding operations must be carried out with care, not only to insure that each dam is installed in the proper location, but also to insure that a dam will not, during use, slide or otherwise move around in the liquid conduit groove and will not work loose while the insert cavity or core is being machined. (The machining operations are usually done, at least in part, on turning lathes which rotate the inserts at high speeds and there is a danger that a loose dam would fly away from a rotating insert and cause injury to the lathe operator.) The use of the described welding procedure is obviously inefficient and costly because it requires the availability of a skilled welder when each insert is removed from inventory in order to insure that a liquid barrier is properly formed. Of course, an option would be to inventory inserts having inlet and outlet barriers already formed. However, that would require twice the inventory to reasonably insure that there would be an adequate supply of inserts usable with "A" plates and also an adequate supply of inserts usable with "B" plates.
The user of a mold insert often drills liquid passageways extending inwardly from circumferentially-extending liquid conduit grooves to meet various cooling or heating needs. To insure an adequate flow of liquid into such inwardly directed passageways, one or more additional dams or barriers are affixed inside the peripheral liquid conduit groove. The provision of additional dams or barriers, using the present welding procedures, can be time consuming and costly.
Accordingly, there exists a need to improve the efficiency with Which inserts can be inventoried and there is also a need to enable the user of an insert to quickly, accurately and securely assemble liquid dams or barriers into liquid conduit grooves of mold inserts.

Method of providing a barrier to substantially block the flow of liquid in a mold insert


In a vehicle power unit having an internal combustion engine, a pair of power transmission gears for transmitting rotation of a crank shaft to a balancer shaft is arranged between a crankcase and a crankcase cover, and a fluid pump is provided on a power transmission gear shaft supporting a power transmission gear, by which the backlash between the crank shaft and the balancer shaft is reduced and the friction and the noise of the gears are restrained while achieving downsizing of the gears of the crank shaft and the balancer, weight reduction and downsizing of the power unit.

Vehicle power units having a conventional balancer mechanism include a type in which a drive gear provided on a crank shaft and a driven gear on a balancer shaft directly engage with each other and transmit rotary driving force from the crank shaft to the balancer shaft (see Patent Document 1).
This type of power units have a problem in that backlash noise occurs between the drive gear and the driven gear arranged between the crank shaft and the balancer shaft when fluctuation occurs in the rotation of the crank shaft in a state with increased backlash due to temperature variations accompanying the operation of the power unit. Further, in cases of using layout structure with a long interval between the crank shaft and the balancer shaft, problems arise in that the drive gear and the driven gear are required to increase in diameter and weight. This causes the crankcase to be enlarged outward, and the power unit to be increased in size.


An architecture for distributing routing updates via a broadcast channel is disclosed. A routing fountain (“RF”) is configured to receive routing information updates. The routing information updates include network addressing information, changes to a routing structure of a network, or general information regarding the network. One or more routing fountain subscriber (“RFS”) nodes are configured to send routing information updates to the RF and receive routing information updates from a routing distribution channel (“RDC”). Broadcast equipment is configured to receive routing information updates from the RF and broadcast the received routing information updates to the one or more RFS nodes via the RDC.

In the past several decades, the proliferation of a common set of distributed routing protocols has empowered growth of interconnectivity and facilitated the development of large inter-domain networks like the Internet. In inter-domain networks, the control system generally consists of a set of routers under the administrative control of different organizations that collectively exchange and act upon the connectivity information received from the routers of neighboring organizations. These organizations generally are Internet Service Providers ("ISPs"), non-ISP corporations, or other organizations that, through their connections, form the Internet.
In general, this interconnectivity has relied on topology-agnostic route exchange mechanisms in which neighboring networks exchange information with one another about what networks can be reached. For example, in conventional approaches, routing messages are often exchanged exclusively between neighboring networks by configuring respective routers in a peering relationship using Border Gateway Protocol ("BGP"). Under current protocol-defined behaviors, when a first router of one network receives a BGP message from a second router of another network, the first router analyzes the information contained in the message. If the message helps the first router to form an ideal path to the message destination, the first router redistributes the message to its neighboring routers. Using this methodology for routing, messages containing network-related routing information propagate throughout a much larger network (such as the Internet) on a "hop-by-hop" basis in a conceptually similar manner to individuals passing information through "hear-say" communication. When all participants follow this approach, enough information may be distributed to allow for interconnectivity between thousands of networks, even though a single network may only be directly connected to a few networks.
The ultimate goal of exchanging this connectivity information is to create a distributed process that facilitates multi-hop forwarding paths from any source to any destination user of the large set of connected networks—ideally along an optimal path. In the general case, the ability to make an optimal next hop decision for a particular fragment of information requires that each network participant be informed of the underlying neighbor connectivity and any identified path restrictions. As networks grow due to the addition of participant organizations and experience increasingly dynamic behavior caused by nodes joining or leaving the network, the task of efficiently distributing the necessary control information to make these decisions also increases in complexity.
The elementary case in inter-domain routing is that each participant has at least one unique piece of information that is of interest to every other participant of the distributed system, and therefore requires sending this message to the rest of the n−1 participants. If n participants transmit each of their unique messages to n−1 participants, the collective task of distributing routing information for the entire system can be generalized as having a distribution complexity of O(n2) (commonly known as "Big Oh" notation in computer science). In systems like the Internet that include millions of routers, the task of distributing this routing information to nodes within the existing bandwidth limitations can take a considerable amount of time, exacerbated by the effects of dropped packets, duplicate message transmissions, and congested communication links. For networking systems in particular, delays caused by routing updates may be frustrating to users because the physical connectivity is available, but data cannot traverse the network because participant networks have not received the needed information to facilitate the flow of traffic.
While this single router-to-router information dissemination approach has helped to facilitate the incremental growth and expansion of the Internet, such conventional approaches struggle to provide adequate convergence performance to accommodate for future network growth, to accommodate the control plane dynamics caused by mobile networks, and to counter network security threats. For example, the distribution of routing updates through BGP may take minutes, or in some cases hours, to propagate across the entire Internet. During the time these routing updates are propagating, a user cannot assume that traffic will be properly delivered to the intended destination, thus lowering the utility of the network. Beyond these delays, many of the messages transmitted in existing BGP implementations are wasteful in the sense that they contain duplicate or incorrect information.
Also, mobile networks have not been widely integrated with the inter-domain routing processes of the Internet. Instead, methodologies for providing routing-like services for mobile nodes have predominantly consisted of tunneling and agent-based forwarding that create path forwarding inefficiencies. Further, current routing protocols of the Internet are considered vulnerable because no globally accepted mechanism exists for preventing malicious nodes from falsifying information in a routing message to divert traffic in a harmful way from other targeted routing participants. Accordingly, routing protocols, infrastructure, and devices that address these issues may be beneficial.

Inter-domain routing message distribution through wide area broadcast channel


Methods and systems for agile load balancing include detecting an increased load for a first primary virtual machine (VM) on a first node that has a plurality of additional primary VMs running on a processor; deactivating one or more of the additional primary VMs, reducing said one or more deactivated VMs to a secondary state, to free resources at the first node for the first primary VM; and activating secondary VMs, located at one or more additional nodes, that correspond to the one or more deactivated VMs, raising said secondary VMs to a primary state. Activation and deactivation through micro-checkpointing may involve nodes of different CPU architectures during transient periods of peak load.

Technical Field
The present invention relates to system virtualization and, more particularly, to agile virtual machine load balancing.
Description of the Related Art
Virtualization is evolving as a key consolidation technology and is part of the foundation of cloud computing. The ability to create and manage virtual machines (VMs) has become a necessity for data center management. Cloud providers typically use these techniques to consolidate multiple applications or VMs onto a single node to minimize their costs and to take maximum advantage of virtualization. At the same time, cloud consumers expect VMs to obey desired service level agreements (SLAs) to satisfy their own clients' needs. SLAs typically include performance SLAs in addition to others, such as availability, security, etc. This in turn means that providers provision resources to the VMs to handle varying loads, including peak loads. However, load variation on the application cannot generally be known beforehand. If resources are provisioned to handle a certain amount of load, then VM performance may degrade during peak loads, thus violating the promised SLAs.
One solution to this problem has been to over-provision resources to the VMs, by providing enough extra resources to the VM to handle peak loads. This approach has a drawback in that the resources in the system are under-utilized except when they are at peak load, which results in a higher cost to providers, which need to use more physical resources to provide the resources to the over-provisioned VMs. Another conventional solution is to migrate secondary VMs to a different machine when one VM on the same node reaches peak loads. However, migrating a VM may need significant resources and time and may even degrade the performance of the VM that is at peak load if resources such as processing and network resources are used for migration.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Agile VM load balancing through micro-checkpointing and multi-architecture emulation

International Business Machines Corporation


N,N,N',N'-Tetrasubstituted 1,4-diamino-2-butenes where the substituents are alkyl, cycloalkyl, aralkyl, aryl or mixtures thereof provide effective antioxidant protection to lubricants and/or synthetic polymers.

The instant substituted 1,4-diamino-2-butene compounds fall into three general groups depending on the various substituents on the two N-atoms.
When said substituents are alkyl, compounds having at least one lower alkyl, preferably two lower alkyl groups, on each N-atom are known. Lower alkyl includes methyl, ethyl, propyl butyl and amyl. Typical is N,N,N', N'-tetramethyl-2-butene-1,4-diamine. The use of such lower alkyl compounds as stabilizers is not disclosed. The instant alkyl substituents are higher alkyls such as octyl, decyl, octadecyl and the like.
When said substituents are aralkyl, the hydrochloride salt of such the tetrabenzyl compound has a CAS number (5443-70-9), but no other published reference is known for said material nor is there any known utility for said compound. The other tetra-aralkyl compounds are believed to be novel materials. The stabilized compositions where the stabilizers are the instant compounds having one or more aralkyl substituents are not disclosed in the prior art.
When said substituents are aryl, British Patent No. 1,438,482 generically describes lubricant compositions containing substituted aryl mines of the formula R--X where R is a secondary amine residue containing two aromatic groups attached to nitrogen such as (Ar).sub.2 N--. This reference also generically describes compounds of the formula R--Y--R where Y is inter alia --CH.sub.2 CH.dbd.CHCH.sub.2 --. The only such compounds specifically disclosed by the British reference are those where R is an alkylated phenothiazine moiety. The closest compound of this reference is 1,4-but-2-ene-bis(3,7-dioctylphenothiazine).
British Patent No. 1,438,482 does not disclose or suggest that the compounds described therein can provide effective antioxidant protection to synthetic polymer compositions.


There is provided a lighting fixture including: a light source that emits a light beam; an electrodeposition device that includes multiple pixels of which a transparent state and a mirror state are switchable, independently, and that is disposed such that a normal direction of a pixel surface is not parallel to an optical axis direction of an incident light beam on an optical path of a light beam emitted from the light source; and an optical system that emits, as an illumination beam, both a light beam transmitted through the electrodeposition device and a light beam reflected from the pixel in the mirror state in the electrodeposition device.

A) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lighting fixture that includes an electrodeposition device.
B) Description of the Related Art
A vehicle lighting device that efficiently notifies a driver of the presence of an illumination target such as a pedestrian is disclosed (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-120162).
A headlight used in a vehicle lighting device disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-120162 is configured of, for example, a digital micromirror device (DMD). The DMD is a device that includes multiple micromirrors and can control the rotation of each of the multiple micromirrors. Since the rotation of the micromirror is performed using mechanical means, the headlight disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-120162 has a problem in that the device is vulnerable to vibration, has low durability, it is difficult to achieve miniaturization or thinness, or the like. In addition, since the headlight disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-120162 uses a perfectly reflective optical system, light loss due to reflection, and further, light loss due to aperture ratio is great. In the headlight disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-120162, it is considered that light use efficiency is practically less than 70%.
An electrochromic device has been known as a nonradiative device that uses a color variation phenomenon of a substance by an electrochemical reversible reaction (electrolytic oxidation reduction reaction) when a voltage is applied.
Among electrochromic materials (materials that have a electrochemical oxidation or reduction reaction when a voltage is applied and thereby, have color variation such as coloring or decoloring), a material of which a part is, for example, precipitated or deposited (electrodeposited) on an electrode, or disappears from an electrode by an oxidation or reduction reaction is referred to as an electrodeposition material. In addition, a device that uses the electrodeposition material is referred to as an electrodeposition device.
An electrodeposition device that has a high quality mirror state is disclosed (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2012-181389). The electrodeposition device includes, for example, an electrolyte layer that contains a silver complex, and realizes the mirror state by applying a voltage and causing silver to be precipitated on an electrode. Further, the electrolyte layer contains, for example, copper. The electrodeposition device realizes a transparent state when no voltage is applied.


A grip for use on a firearm includes a base surface, portions that are raised above the base surface, and/or portions that are lower than the base surface. The grip may include raised portions and lowered portions that alternate vertically and/or horizontally on the grip. The raised portions may be 0.005″ to 0.050″ above the surface, and the lowered portions may be 0.005″ to 0.050″ lower than the surface. The grip may be formed of any suitable material, such as plastic or rubber, and made in any suitable manner, such as injection molding or vacuum molding. The raised portions and/or lowered portions may include one or more of designs, letters, and numbers.

Hand grips for firearms, such as handguns, machine pistols and rifles, are known. Such hand grips are often formed of materials that are easy to grip, some of which are compressible, to allow the user to better grasp the grip. Handgun grips are often provided in multiple (usually two) pieces that are fit on each side of the gun handle and are secured by one or more fasteners. Similar grips may be utilized on rifles or other types of firearms.
Grip panels have been provided in different widths and thicknesses to accommodate the different sized-hands of different users.
Interchangeable gun grips are also known. They are typically bolted onto side panels of the gun handle. Handgrips can also be modified to accept a removable ergonomic insert that changes the palm relief of the firearm. In that case, several inserts with different profiles are provided to a user to select the most comfortable and/or appropriate size for the user.


The invention is embodied in suture needle holders particularly useful in endoscopic surgical procedures. The instruments either incorporate a fixed suture needle or facilitate the secure, reversible grasping of a suture needle. Actuation of the instrument steadily directs the needle through the path of an arc thereby facilitating passage of the needle through tissue for suture placement. Actuation of the instruments involves simple opposed finger movement which obviates the often times difficult rotational wrist movement necessary for use of needle holders in the prior art.

1. Field of The Invention
Applicant's invention relates to surgical instruments and more particularly to methods and techniques of suturing within a body cavity such as the abdominal cavity of a human or an animal.
2. Background Information
Many surgical operations are being performed endoscopically and as technology advances new applications are being developed. The primary advantage to the patient of laparoscopic surgery is that the post operative recovery period is dramatically shortened thereby reducing the period of hospitalization. In addition, patients return to work much sooner than after surgery with large incisions.
Some of the technical problems encountered by those practicing laparoscopic surgery includes the need to perform delicate three dimensional procedures while looking at a two dimensional video screen since laparoscopy is performed with the operator looking solely at a two-dimensional video screen for guidance. This makes it difficult to grasp and manipulate suture needles because of the complete loss of depth perception.
Applying the existing art requires that, once a suture needle has been grasped using presently available instruments, the needle is inserted into the tissues by way of rotation of the instrument which, in turn, is effected only through a rotational movement of the user's wrist. This is often difficult and complicated because the operator typically has only a very limited range of movement caused by the constraining effect of the substantially immobile abdominal wall coupled with the location and position of the laparoscopic cannula through which the needle holding instrument must pass. These problems, coupled with the difficulties associated with the present generation of suture needle holders, make suture placement time consuming. This, in turn, translates into more expensive and at least slightly more risky procedures.
Most current endoscopic needle holders are modifications of conventional needle holders where the needle is simply grasped by hinged jaws. A characteristic necessarily common to most endoscopic instruments--being both long and slender--works counter to providing an effective needle handling capacity when applying the techniques of the prior art. The hinged jaws which are common to existing needle grasping mechanisms are necessarily small. To the extent that mere scissor-like mechanisms are used to apply the compressive force to the hinged jaws, the length of the instrument combined with its low mass prevents generating aim effective compressive force on the grasped portion of the needle. This results in a tendency of the needle to rotate in the jaws as the surgeon attempts to place a suture.
A further difficulty with current needle holders is that once the needle is secured in the needle holder it is often difficult to advance the needle through the tissues in the desired direction because of the limitations caused by the location of the endoscopic cannula and the technical difficulty in rotation of the operator's wrist. Occasionally, the surgeon has to pass the needle more than once in order to obtain the correct placement of the needle.
The present invention provides an instrument which allows a suture needle to be rotated between desired positions, in the process passing through a definite and specific arc lying in a stationary plane. The needle's movement is effected, not through rotation of the instrument through rotation of the user's wrist, but rather by simple opposition of the thumb and the second and third fingers as applied to the actuating members of Applicant's new instrument. Accordingly, Applicant's invention allows for accurate and less difficult placement of sutures, and the problems and difficulties associated with wrist rotation as required when practicing the prior art are thereby wholly eliminated.
Applicant's instruments also effect a secure grasp on a suture needle notwithstanding the instrument's size and shape being ideal for endoscopic surgery.
Prior issued patents which are known to Applicant and which relate to needle holders which are used during surgical operations are revealed in the discussion to follow.
The problem of adequately securing a needle has been partially addressed through an instrument manufactured by COOK OBGYN and disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,015,250. The COOK OBGYN instrument involves a needle lying in a groove in a hollow channel. The needle is secured by a spring loaded rod which immobilizes the needle in the channel. Nevertheless, the disadvantages of this instrument are that (1) the spring is very strong and requires great force to grasp and release the needle, and (2) the handle portion is not rotatable relative to the remainder of the instrument such that placement of the needle in the tissues requires a rotational movement of the wrist and arm. This makes precise placement of the needle very difficult.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,898,157 issued to Messroghli et al is a needle holder not specifically designed for endoscopic use. Pressure on the handles is converted into a longitudinally directed force which is converted into pressure on a movable jaw to grasp a surgical needle. Once again, it is believed that even if modified, the force applied to the needle would be inadequate to truly secure the needle under many endoscopic surgery conditions.
A needle taught by Yasukata Eguchi et al (U.S. Pat. No. 4,527,564) has a rectangular proximal end which allows for rigid grasping by a needle holder. The needle is not, however, suitable for endoscopic surgery.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,760,848 issued to Hasson addresses the difficulties associated with wrist movement in endoscopic surgery. Hasson's invention uses conventional needle holding jaws that self lock. Rotation of the needle during its insertion is effected by rotation of the instrument with the thumb and fingers. The grasping mechanism is suitable for very small needles used in microsurgery, but does not grasp the needle sufficiently securely for laparoscopic surgery.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,621,640 issued to Mulhollan discloses a mechanical needle carrier which holds a surgical needle for use during endoscopic surgery. This is a small needle which is contained within the sheath of the, instrument and is advanced through tissues by rotation of a knurled rod. The size of the needle is limited by the diameter of the shaft and is too small to be applicable to abdominal or thoracic endoscopic surgery. A similar problem plagues the suturing instrument described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,557,265.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,923,461 issued to Caspari discloses a method of suturing for arthroscopic surgery that incorporates a hollow needle and a mechanism whereby suture may be fed through the hollow needle.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,484,580, 4,417,532 and 4,406,237 issued respectively to Nomoto et al, Eguchi Yasukata, and Yasukata Eguchi et al, as well as earlier referenced U.S. Pat. No. 4,527,564, all teach needles each having a distal eye through which suture thread passes. These needles are each rigidly attached to a shaft which allows precise placement, but are locked in a fixed position and cannot be retracted to allow passage through an endoscope. Also, these needles are necessarily of a size which preclude their exit through an endoscope, even if not locked in place. Even if these needles were to be reduced in size sufficiently to pass through an endoscope, they would be too small for most abdominal or thoracic applications.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,935,027 issued to Yoon teaches a suturing instrument which places suture material through tissues endoscopically by grasping tissues between two hollow jaws and passing suture from one to the other.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,164,225 issued to Johnson et al also grasps tissue between two jaws. Activation of a plunger allows a suture bearing needle to pass from one jaw to the other and thereby pass suture material through the tissues. A similar achievement is performed by U.S. Pat. No. 3,946,740 issued to Bassett.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,793,379 issued to Weinrib describes a microsurgical needle holder which has a hook on one jaw to assist in grasping the needle securely.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,842,840 issued to Schweizer discloses a suture clamp in which a needle is driven from one jaw to the other carrying a length of suture through the grasped tissues. Because of the scissor-like action of the Jaws this instrument is not suitable for endoscopic surgery.
Mulhollan in U.S. Pat. No. 4,597,390 describes a novel endoscopic needle holder in which the needle is firmly held by slots in two hollow members. The needle is inserted into tissues by rotation of the shaft of the instrument.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,871,379 issued to Clarke describes several endoscopic instruments, one of which is an articulated needle with a distal eye. This instrument allows a curved needle to be inserted through an endoscopic cannula. Abduction of the handles causes the needle to be displaced laterally, but does not cause it to travel through a specific arc.

705 Oak Hills Medical Bldg., 7711 Louis-Pasteur Dr.


A plasma display panel is disclosed. The plasma display panel has discharge cells which each have a range of widths between the first substrate and the second substrate. In addition, the discharge spaces are separated by non-discharge spaces having heights which are less than the heights of the discharge spaces.

1. Field of the Invention
The field relates to a plasma display panel, and more particularly, to a high efficiency plasma display panel capable of driving a high light emission brightness and low power consumption.
2. Description of the Related Technology
In general, plasma display panels (PDPs) are a type of flat display devices which excite a fluorescent material using ultraviolet rays generated by plasma discharge and form an image using visible light generated by the fluorescent material. In a general structure of the PDP, a plurality of discharge electrodes are arranged on an upper substrate and a plurality of address electrodes are arranged on a lower substrate. The upper and lower substrates are assembled to face each other by interposing partition walls for defining a plurality of discharge cells therebetween. Then, after a discharge gas is injected between the upper and lower substrates, a discharge voltage is applied between the discharge electrodes so that a fluorescent material coated in the discharge cells is excited. Accordingly, visible light is generated so that an image is formed by the plurality of discharge cells.
In the above described conventional structure, a considerable portion of a fluorescent layer is attached to a side surface of the partition wall. Because the fluorescent layer is formed with a fluorescent paste that has a fluidity, during the formation of the fluorescent layer, the fluorescent paste sags and flows down from the side surface of the partition wall. As a result, the fluorescent layer is not formed with sufficiently uniform thickness. Also, the visible light generated by the fluorescent layer is not emitted in a generally upward display direction but, rather in a generally lateral direction from the partition wall. Consequently, visible light emission efficiency is low. Furthermore, since the lower surface of the discharge cell on which the fluorescent material is concentrated is relatively far from the upper substrate where the discharge electrodes are arranged. Accordingly, a sufficient amount of an ultraviolet ray may not reach the fluorescent layer, leaving the fluorescent layer ineffectively excited, unless a very high address drive voltage is used.


Expanding packers for use in oil or gas wellbores, with and without casing, for isolating a casing annulus or geologic formation from the remainder of the wellbore and for increasing production flow rates. These expanding packers are useful in completing sidetracked wells.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to apparatus and methods for drilling and/or completing wells in the subterranean. In another aspect, the present invention relates to apparatus and methods for isolating geological formations in wells and isolating well casing annuluses. In even another aspect, the present invention relates to apparatus and methods for producing from side tracked wells drilled from the bore of previously drilled wells. In still another aspect, the present invention relates to apparatus and methods for isolating defective casing in an existing wellbore, isolating a liner top, or isolating a zone.
2. Description of the Related Art
Oil fields are usually produced by drilling wells to one or more large reservoirs or to vertically-separated smaller reservoirs encountered by an individual wellbore. The costs of a well are the costs of drilling and the cost of completion. Whereas drilling is the actual creation of the wellbore, completion is the process of inserting casing, tubing, and tubular accessories into the well to allow the oil or gas to be drawn out and stored for use. It is common practice in completing a well to run a string of protective casing into the wellbore and then to run production tubing inside the casing to one large reservoir or to vertically-separated production zones encountered by the wellbore. Once the oil or gas bearing formations penetrated are depleted, the well has lost its usefulness.
In many instances, small reservoirs in other areas of the oil bearing formation in the vicinity of the wellbores may not be depleted. Unfortunately, it is expensive to drill out through the side of the well (sidetrack) through the existing well casing using conventional sidetracking methods. Such methods require that the tubing be removed, a section of the casing be milled out and a drill run back down through the casing and directed outward through the milled-out section to drill a directional well from the casing outwardly to an area from which additional hydrocarbons may be recovered. Since these techniques are relatively expensive, the amount of potential hydrocarbon recovery required to justify such sidetracking operations is relatively large. Since, in many instances, areas of potentially recoverable hydrocarbons containing less than the amount required to justify this additional expense are known, it is desirable that a more economical method be developed to enable the economical recovery of these smaller quantities of hydrocarbons. The smaller quantities of hydrocarbons may, in fact, be quite sizeable.
One problem that can reduce the cost effectiveness of a side tracked well is that the new tubing inserted in the original well casing in the process of drilling the lateral well usually is of smaller diameter than the tubing of the original well to provide room for passing the tubing down the casing and into the lateral wellbore. This smaller diameter of tubing reduces the rate at which oil or gas can be brought to the surface.
Another problem associated with conventional sidetracking methods is the frequent need to run and cement an additional set of casing above or through the proposed producing formation to isolate the side tracked well from such problems as adjacent water-bearing formations.
There is a need in the art for apparatus and method for drilling and/or completing a well.
There is another need in the art for improved apparatus and methods for drilling and/or completing a well, which do not suffer from all of the deficiencies of the prior art.
There is even another need for apparatus and methods for performing cost-effective side tracked well completions.
There is still another need in the art for apparatus and methods for accessing small reservoirs with side tracked completions, which do not suffer from the disadvantages of the prior art apparatus and methods, such as the need to run and cement an additional set of casing above or through the proposed producing formation.
There is yet another need in the art for apparatus and methods for isolating formations and well casing annuluses.
There is even still another need in the art for apparatus and methods for isolating formations and well casing annuluses which address at least some of the deficiencies of the prior art, such as obtaining reduced flow rates because of the necessity of running smaller tubular strings to operate within existing wells.
These and other needs in the art will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon review of this specification, including its drawings and claims.
It is an object of the present invention to provide for an improved apparatus and method for drilling and/or completing a well.
It is another object of the present invention to provide for apparatus and methods for performing cost-effective side tracked well completions.
It is even another object of the present invention to provide for apparatus and methods for accessing small reservoirs with side tracked completions, which do not suffer from the disadvantages of the prior art apparatus and methods, such as the need to run and cement an additional set of casing above or through the proposed producing formation. It is an object of the present invention to provide for apparatus and methods for isolating formations and well casing annuluses.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide for apparatus and methods for isolating formations and well casing annuluses which address at least some of the deficiencies of the prior art, such as obtaining reduced flow rates because of the necessity of running smaller tubular strings to operate within existing wells.
These and other objects of the present invention will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon review of this specification, including its drawings and claims.
According to one embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a packer system which generally includes an expandable tubing and at least one elastomeric expanding element encircling said tubing. In a more specific non-limiting embodiment of this embodiment, the expandable packer system includes expandable tubing with separated transverse external bands of elastomeric elements adhering to the tubing with each of the two transverse edges of each band anchored by single centralizer rings, which also serve to maintain a packer in the center of a wellbore or casing.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a work string assembly for use in a subterranean wellbore. The assembly generally includes a work string suitable for insertion into the wellbore. The work string also includes a pig launcher connected to the work string. The work string even also includes an expandable tubing connected to the pig launcher and at least one elastomeric expanding element encircling said tubing.
According to even another embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a method for expanding a packer in a well. The method generally includes positioning a packer system, as described above, in a subterranean well, and then passing an expansion pig through the expandable tubing to abut the elastomeric elements against the well wall.

Method and apparatus for completing wells with expanding packers for casing annulus formation isolation


Disclosed is a system and method for a capacitive sensing device. The method includes transmitting a stimulation signal to a driving channel of the capacitive sensing device. The stimulation signal includes a plurality of sub-stimulation signals. Each of the sub-stimulation signals is characterized by an amplitude and a frequency. The frequencies of the sub-stimulation signals are orthogonal. The method further includes receiving a charge signal from a sensing channel of the capacitive sensing device. The charge signal is generated from the stimulation signal through a capacitance between the driving channel and the sensing channel. The method further includes detecting, from the charge signal, a plurality of sub-charge signal amplitudes at the frequencies of the sub-stimulation signals, and reporting a value about the capacitance from the sub-charge signal amplitudes. The method benefits the capacitive sensing device for increased noise immunity, reduced dynamic range, and reduced power consumption.

Capacitive sensing apparatus are widely used in electronic devices such as smart phones, tablet computers, wearable devices, and fingerprint scanners. Examples of capacitive sensing apparatus include touch panels (or touch screens) and fingerprint sensors.
Touch panels typically include a touch-sensitive surface. When a stylus or a human body part, such as a finger, touches a point on the surface, the touch position is recognized and processed. Upon this principle, a user may make a selection or a gesture.
One type of touch panels, capacitive touch panel using mutual capacitance sensing technology, has gained popularity due to its capability of sensing multiple touch points (or multi-touch) simultaneously. A mutual capacitance sensing touch panel typically includes two conductive layers separated by a dielectric layer. The two conductive layers may be made of a transparent conductive material such as indium tin oxide (ITO). The two conductive layers each include a plurality of conductors oriented in a particular direction. A mutual capacitance forms when one conductor in one layer overlays another conductor in the other layer. In one exemplary panel, one layer includes M row conductors in the horizontal direction and the other layer includes N column conductors in the vertical direction so as to form a matrix of M×N mutual capacitances in the panel, one in each intersection. When a finger touches the panel, human body capacitance to ground effectively alters the mutual capacitance at the touch point, which can be detected to indicate the touch position.
Capacitive fingerprint sensors may include a single row of sensors (e.g. sweep scanners) or a two-dimensional array of sensors (e.g. area scanners). Each sensor typically includes an active capacitive feedback circuit whose effective capacitance is decreased by the presence of a finger near the sensor. The amount of capacitance decrease is more for ridges and less for valleys, thereby allowing the user's fingerprint to be recorded or recognized.
A device using the above capacitive sensing apparatus (e.g. a touch panel or a fingerprint sensor) further includes driving and sensing circuits that drive signals to and sense outputs from the apparatus in order to detect the touch events. For example, a stimulus in the form of a square wave or a sine wave is driven onto a driving channel (e.g. a row conductor in a touch panel). This stimulus is coupled onto a sensing channel (e.g. a column conductor in a touch panel) through a capacitance between the driving and sensing channels. The outputs from the sensing channels are monitored (or sensed) for detecting the touch events. When a finger touches the apparatus, one or more of the outputs from the sensing channels will change in magnitude, indicating the touch positions in the case of touch panels, or the touch impression in the case of fingerprint sensors.
However, noises can easily interfere with the stimulus and/or the outputs, causing sensing errors. For example, noises may come from nearby environment having wireless signals such as 802.11 and Bluetooth, a switched-mode power supply, and the like. To increase sensing accuracy, common methods increase the amplitude of the stimulus or increase the time period for sensing. However, increasing the stimulus amplitude requires increased dynamic range in the circuits, and increasing the time period slows down the sensing operation. Either method also results in higher power consumption.
Accordingly, what is needed is improvement in the driving and sensing circuits associated with the capacitive sensing apparatus.

System and method for capacitive sensing


An information processing system that is configured in such a manner that computational processing is performed on input data in accordance with a processing sequence, for outputting data, comprises: a plurality of arithmetic units (7-1 to 7-x), each computing at an arithmetic precision 2m bits (where m is a natural number) based on the processing sequence; and a plurality of cascade connection terminals for cascading these arithmetic units each other. When the maximum arithmetic precision that is required during computational processing is 2n bits (where n is a natural number and is fixed), x numbers of (where x is a natural number) the arithmetic units are cascaded in a manner such that the inequality xxe2x89xa72n/2m is satisfied. When an arithmetic precision of 2n1 bits (where n1xe2x89xa6n, and n1 is variable) is necessary during computational processing, x1 numbers of the arithmetic units are cascaded in a manner such that the inequality x1xe2x89xa72n1/2m (where x1 is a natural number and is variable) is satisfied. This makes it possible to easily implement an information processing system for performing computations to any desired precision in a hardware manner, and also makes it possible to support a simple hardware-based method of expanding the arithmetic precision.

The present invention relates to an information processing system and an encryption/decryption system and, in particular, to an information processing system that is capable of performing computation to any desired precision due to the hardware configuration thereof and an encryption/decryption system that is capable of performing encryptions and decryptions due to the hardware configuration thereof. In addition, the present invention also relates to an information processing system, a system LSI, and electronic equipment that use an internal or external bus line for an optical transmission method.
When complicated and large-scale computations are to be performed, such as those for random number generation, wavelet transformation, neural networks, fast Fourier transformation, and digital filters, considerations of development costs and time scales make it standard in the art to implement them by software, using general-purpose computation devices, instead of dedicated hardware which is only used in specific applications.
The recent spread of the Internet has increased the necessity of information security techniques, from the viewpoints of electronic transactions and privacy protection, and cryptographic techniques have drawn attention as effective means of providing them.
The main categories of cryptographic methods are private-key cryptosystem and public-key cryptosystem, where a typical private-key cryptosystem is the Data Encryption Standard (DES) and a typical public-key cryptosystem is Rivest-Shamir-Adleman cryptography (RSA) system.
In principle, DES is a method of rearranging or substituting of a data bit string and RSA is a method of performing residue operations on an extremely large number of bits, so a public-key cryptosystem tends to be several hundred times slower than a private-key cryptosystem. This is because public-key cryptosystems perform residue computations to an extremely high precision, using at least several hundred bits as a modulus.
In such a case, it has become common to use a cryptographic method in which a private-key cryptosystem is used to encrypt a large-volume data string and a public-key cryptosystem is used for delivering authentication, a signature, and a key, which involve a small volume of data.
With public-key cryptosystem, the encryption strength can be selected by varying the bit length of the key, so there is a demand for methods of enabling computations using public keys of various different numbers of bits that have been revealed to communications partners.
If it is desired to exceed the arithmetic precision of a general-purpose computation device, when using a technique of employing such a general-purpose computation device to implement computations by software, such as those used in random number generation, wavelet transformation, neural networks, fast Fourier transformation, and digital filters, it is necessary to support everything in the software and thus it may become impossible to implement this in reality because of increases in programming labor and processing time.
It is regulated that DES must be implemented by using hardware techniques. Therefore, it is in fact difficult to prevent third parties from breaking the ciphers of an encryption/decryption system created by software alone. If part of the encryption algorithm could be implemented by hardware, it will be possible to increase the strength of the encryption.
A single chip public-key cryptographic processor has already been proposed, similar to this public-key cryptosystem (in the proceedings of the Electronic Information Communications Society, D-I, Vol. J80-D-I, No. 8, pp. 725-735, 1997-8).
However, although this single chip public-key cryptographic processor does enable processing at any desired precision within a precision range that is set beforehand by the hardware, processing at a precision in excess of that preset precision is not possible, raising the problem that new hardware must be designed therefor.
If the computation device is configured of thin film transistors (TFTs) on a single chip, by way of example, the presence of non-operating transistors could make the entire computation device unusable, raising problems of a reduction in yield and also an increase in fabrication costs.
As yet another technical concern, recent advances in microcomputers has promoted the miniaturization and value-added capabilities of appliances in various fields, but it has become extremely difficult to design such microcomputers. Together with the push for increases integration of microcomputers formed of microprocessors (MPUs) on single chips, wiring widths are now of the submicron order and the resistance thereof is increasing, and also the stray capacities thereof have been increased by multi-layer configurations, so that distributed parameter circuits are formed in the wiring sections, which increased the propagation delays in electrical signals.
This means that it is necessary to determine the instruction cycle of the central processing unit (CPU) within the microcomputer, after considering the time required for the CPU to transmit data and addresses to other functional units and the time required before the CPU can input data from the other functional units, which increases the design load caused by signal propagation delays.
Recent trends in miniaturization and additional functions have meant that progress has been only in the directions of VLSIs and higher levels of integrations, making the design of microcomputers even more difficult.
Increases in wiring resistance and capacity have not only produced signal propagation delays, they also cause deformation of the rectangular waveforms of signals. There have been recent advances in lower power consumptions, particularly in portable electronic equipment, but if voltage levels become lower and the extent of deformation of the rectangular waveforms increases, it is no longer possible to ensure the functions of signals and erroneous operation can occur.
An objective of the present invention is to provide an information processing system that enables a system that can compute to any desired precision, using a simple hardware structure.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide an encryption/decryption system that makes it possible to facilitate the construction of a system that is required to operate at any desired precision (any desired number of bits), using hardware.
A further objective of the present invention is to provide an information processing system and an encryption/decryption system that make it possible to improve the effective yield when the system is configured on a single chip, and also improve the reliability of the system.
Yet another objective of the present invention is to provide an information processing system and a system LSI, together with electronic equipment using the same, in which signal propagation delays are reduced to a degree such that changes in signal waveform can be ignored, and which can be designed simply.
A still further objective of the present invention is to provide a system LSI, together with electronic equipment using the same, that make it possible to simplify the management of intellectual property rights when using the above encryption/decryption system in a simple manner, even when it incorporates functional blocks developed by other companies.
One aspect of the present invention relates to an information processing system in which computational processing is performed on input data in accordance with a processing sequence, for outputting data, the information processing system comprising:
a plurality of arithmetic units, each computing to an arithmetic precision of 2m bits (where m is, a natural number), based on the processing sequence; and
a plurality of cascade connection terminals for cascading the arithmetic units each other,
wherein, when the maximum arithmetic precision that is required during computational processing is 2n bits (where n is a natural number and is fixed), x numbers of (where x is a natural number) the arithmetic units are cascaded in a manner such that the inequality xxe2x89xa72n/2m is satisfied.
This aspect of the invention simplifies the hardware processing by distributing the computational processing among a plurality of computational processing units, making it possible to configure a system in a simple manner and increase the speed of computational processing, even when high-volume computations and large precisions are required for processing such as that for random number generation, wavelet transformation, fast Fourier transformation, and digital filters. As a result of this distributed processing, it is possible to restrain the number of gates of the arithmetic units, reducing device costs.
In this aspect of the invention, when an arithmetic precision of 2n1 bits (where n1xe2x89xa6n, and n1 is variable) is required during computational processing, x1 numbers of the arithmetic units are cascaded in a manner such that the inequality x1xe2x89xa72n1/2m (where x1 is a natural number and is variable) is satisfied. In this case, a clock generation circuit generates 2n1 numbers of reference clock pulses during computational processing. This ensures that x1 out of the x numbers of arithmetic units can be cascaded efficiently. With this configuration, the power that would be consumed by the remaining arithmetic units is saved and computational speeds are also increased. If the configuration is such that optical signals are transmitted between the plurality of arithmetic units, the computational speeds can be further increased.
Each of the plurality of arithmetic units may comprise y numbers of arithmetic modules (where y is a natural number and is fixed), each computing at an arithmetic precision of 2m/y when y numbers of the arithmetic modules are cascaded.
When an arithmetic precision of 2n1 bits (where n1xe2x89xa6n, and n1 is variable) is required during computational processing, the y numbers of arithmetic modules may be cascaded in a manner such that the inequality y1xe2x89xa72n1/2m/y (where y1 is a natural number and is variable) is satisfied.
Alternatively, computations may be executed by (x1xe2x88x921) numbers of cascaded arithmetic units at an arithmetic precision of 2n2 (where n2 less than n1) for performing computations at a 2n1-bit precision; and y1 numbers of arithmetic modules in one other arithmetic unit, which is cascaded from the (x1xe2x88x921) numbers of arithmetic units, may be cascaded in a manner such that the inequality y1xe2x89xa7(2n1xe2x88x922n2)/2m/y (where y1xe2x89xa6y, and y1 is variable) is satisfied.
If the configuration is such that optical signals are transmitted between the maximum y arithmetic modules, the computational speeds within the arithmetic units can be further increased.
This aspect of the invention could be further provided with a first storage section for storing a processing sequence. In addition, it could be further provided with computation control means for controlling the plurality of arithmetic units based on the processing sequence stored in the first storage section. In such a case, the optical signals may be transmitted between the plurality of arithmetic units and the computation control means.
This aspect of the invention could further comprise a second storage section for temporarily storing computation results of the plurality of arithmetic units, where optical signals are transmitted between the second storage section and the plurality of arithmetic units.
To give an example of the computations performed by the plurality of arithmetic units, when the input data is X and N and output data is Y, Y=X2 mod N is computed to generate a pseudo-random number.
In this case, when the yield of the plurality of arithmetic units is A and the total number of arithmetic units that are available is K, a maximum number x (where xxe2x89xa7K/A) of the arithmetic units that are operative may be cascaded.
Alternatively, when the yield of the arithmetic modules is Axe2x80x2 and the total number of arithmetic modules provided in each of the plurality of arithmetic units is L, a maximum number y (where yxe2x89xa7L/Axe2x80x2) of the arithmetic modules that are operative may be cascaded.
Another aspect of the present invention relates to an information processing system in which computational processing is performed on input data in accordance with a processing sequence, for outputting data, the information processing system comprising:
a plurality of internal arithmetic units, each computing to an arithmetic precision of 2m1 bits (where m1 is a natural number and is fixed), based on the processing sequence;
a plurality of external arithmetic units for computing to an arithmetic precision of 2m2 bits (where m2 is a natural number and is fixed); and
cascade connection terminals for cascading the plurality of internal arithmetic units and the plurality of external arithmetic units,
wherein, when the maximum arithmetic precision required during computational processing is 2n bits (where n is a natural number and is variable), z numbers of the external arithmetic units are cascaded in a manner such that the inequality zxe2x89xa7(2nxe2x88x922m1)/2m2 (where z is a natural number and is fixed) is satisfied.
This configuration makes it possible to expand the arithmetic precision in a simple hardware manner, ensuring the reliability of the system while simplifying the design of the information processing system.
An encryption/decryption system in accordance with a further aspect of the present invention comprises:
a plurality of power residue arithmetic units; and
a plurality of cascade connection terminals for cascading the plurality of power residue arithmetic units,
wherein each of the plurality of power residue arithmetic units comprises:
a multiplication unit for performing a multiplication at a multiplication precision of 2m bits (where m is a natural number and is fixed); and
a division unit for performing a division at a division precision of 22xc3x97m bits,
wherein, when the maximum arithmetic precision of a power residue computation executed by the plurality of power residue arithmetic units is 2n (where n is a natural number and is fixed), x numbers of the plurality of power residue arithmetic units are connected together for encryption and decryption, in a manner such that the following inequality is satisfied:
xxe2x89xa72n/2m (where x is a natural number and is fixed).
This configuration simplifies the processing of the hardware by distributing the computational processing required for encryption or decryption among a plurality of computational processing units, making it possible to configure a system in a simple manner and increase the speed of computational processing, even when high-volume computations and large precisions are required for the processing. As a result of this distributed processing, it is possible to restrain the number of gates of the arithmetic units, reducing device costs.
An encryption/decryption system in accordance with a still further aspect of the present invention comprises:
a plurality of internal power residue arithmetic units for performing power residue computation at a multiplication precision of 2m1 bits (where m1 is a natural number and is fixed) and a division precision of 22xc3x97m1 bits;
a plurality of external power residue arithmetic units for performing power residue computation at a multiplication precision of 2m2 bits (where m2 is a natural number and is fixed) and a division precision of 22xc3x97m2 bits; and
cascade connection terminals for cascading the pluralities of internal and external power residue arithmetic units,
wherein, when encryption and decryption is performed at a maximum bit precision of 2n (where n is a natural number and is fixed), z numbers of the external power residue arithmetic units are cascaded in a manner such that the following inequality is satisfied:
zxe2x89xa7(2nxe2x88x922m1)/2m2 (where z is a natural number and is fixed).
This configuration makes it possible to extend the arithmetic, precision for power residue computations in a simple hardware manner, making it possible to ensure sufficient reliability for the precision of the key.
In addition, since external power residue arithmetic units can be configured with a small number of gates, it is possible to simply construct an encryption/decryption system that can run on even a personal computer system.
Yet another aspect of the present invention relates to an information processing system comprising a plurality of functional units, each operating based on multi-channel electrical signals, and a bus line for transmitting signals therebetween, wherein:
each of the plurality of functional units comprises a signal output section and/or a signal input section;
the signal output section comprises electrical-optical signal conversion circuit for converting multi-channel electrical signals into multi-channel optical signals of different wavelengths, and outputting the same;
the signal input section comprises optical-electrical signal conversion circuit for converting the multi-channel optical signals of different wavelengths into the multi-channel electrical signals; and
the bus line is formed by an optical transmission medium.
In this case, signal transmission between one functional unit and another functional unit is through a bus line that is an optical transmission medium, using multi-channel optical signals having separated wavelength. For that purpose, a signal output section of each functional unit comprises electrical-optical signal conversion circuit for converting multi-channel electrical signals into multi-channel optical signals, and a signal input section of each functional unit comprises optical-electrical signal conversion circuit for converting multi-channel optical signals into multi-channel electrical signals.
Since transmission between the functional units on the single-chip are optical, signal propagation delays can be virtually ignored because signal propagation is at the speed of light. As a result, there are no design restrictions caused by such signal propagation delays, making the design of the information processing system simpler.
In this aspect of the invention, one of the plurality of functional units may be a central processing unit (CPU), and the bus line may comprise a data bus line and an address bus line. The data and address bus lines are both formed as optical transmission lines.
In this case, one optical transmission medium may be used in common for the data bus line and the address bus line. Data and addresses could be transmitted not simultaneously, but in a time division manner.
In this aspect of the invention, an optical input-output section for providing optical communications with peripheral equipment is preferably connected to the bus line. With such a configuration, an optical signal that has been converted by the electrical-optical signal conversion circuit of one of the functional units within the information processing system can be sent without any further modification to the peripheral equipment and, conversely, an optical signal from the peripheral equipment can be input without any further modification to the information processing system. This also has the advantage that no noise is superimposed on optical signals and there is no need to remove noise from optical signals.
The optical input-output section for providing optical. communications with peripheral equipment preferably enables optical communications to and from the peripheral equipment, by a chip select signal transmitted from the central processing unit through the bus line. In such a case, an optical shutter or the like, which is operated by the chip select signal, could form the optical input-output section.
A yet further aspect of this aspect of the invention relates to a system LSI configured of a first semiconductor device having a first internal bus line and a second semiconductor device having a second internal bus line, connected together by an external bus line, wherein:
the first semiconductor device comprises a first signal output section and a first signal input section, and a central processing unit (CPU) operating based on multi-channel electrical signals is formed on a first substrate, with the first internal bus line;
the second semiconductor device comprises a second signal output section and a second signal input section, and a controlled unit that is controlled by signals from the central processing unit and operates based on multi-channel electrical signals is formed on a second substrate, with the second internal bus line;
each of the first and second signal output sections comprises electrical-optical signal conversion circuit for converting multi-channel electrical signals into multi-channel optical signals having different wavelengths, and outputting the same;
each of the first and second signal input sections comprises optical-electrical signal conversion circuit for converting multi-channel optical signals having different wavelengths into multi-channel electrical signals; and
the first and second internal bus lines and the external bus line are each formed by an optical transmission medium.
In case, for example, the first semiconductor device is the above described single-chip microcomputer, this configuration makes it possible for at least one functional unit that ought to be incorporated into the microcomputer to be incorporated into a second semiconductor device instead. In this case, the functional units within the first and second semiconductor devices can transmit signals to each other by light through the first and second internal bus lines and the external bus line. Therefore, functional units that are on spatially separated substrates are connected by bus lines capable of communicating at the speed of light, so that this configuration is functionally equivalent to a microcomputer incorporating a plurality of functional units sending signals to each other by light within a single chip as described above.
Thus some of the functional units that ought to be incorporated into a single chip can be placed externally thereto, which has the advantage of making it unnecessary to increase the integration. Alternatively, if it is desired to add arithmetic functions, memory or the like to a microcomputer, it is not necessary to re-design the single-chip microcomputer as in the conventional art, so that a basic microcomputer can be attached to a semiconductor device via an external bus line that is an optical transmission medium. This has the advantage of further increasing the universality of the microcomputer.
In particular, application of the present invention makes it possible to freely modify the capacity of cache memory.
More preferably, the configuration is such that an internal clock on an internal bus line can be supplied to the external bus line. This makes it possible for an internal clock to act as a reference clock for all of the functional units, so that data can be processed in synchronized mode.
Incorporating the above described information processing system or system LSI of the present invention is incorporated into electronic equipment makes it possible to support modifications of the functions of the electronic equipment.
A final aspect of in accordance with this aspect of the invention relates to a system LSI incorporating a plurality of functional blocks developed by different manufacturers, wherein:
at least one of the plurality of functional blocks comprises a four-arithmetical-operations function area; and
the four-arithmetical-operations function area executes computations for decryption when a predetermined decryption key has been input thereto, and a four-arithmetical-operations function other than the decryption is enabled after the decryption is established.
Assume that this system LSI comprises a functional block that was developed by Company A, by way of example. A decryption key (private key) in accordance with the RSA method is disclosed by license to the end user who is using the functional block developed by Company A within this system LSI. Among the users of this system LSI, only end users who possess the decryption key can use this functional block. To use the functional block developed by Company A in this configuration, it is necessary to acquire the decryption key from Company A by license, simplifying the management of intellectual property rights.
The four-arithmetical-operations function area could also comprise x numbers of arithmetic units, each having an arithmetic precision of 2m bits (where m is a natural number and is fixed), that are cascaded for computations. A portion of the plurality of arithmetic units could comprise a plurality of power residue arithmetic units that are cascaded.

Information processing system, enciphering/deciphering system, system LSI, and electronic apparatus


A printer improved in the accuracy of detection as to whether or not recording paper exists. The printer has a sensor provided upstream a printing head in a paper feed direction to detect whether or not recording paper exists, a device for measuring a paper feed quantity of the recording paper, a central processing unit that controls the measuring device and a printer control circuit, and a comparator that makes a comparison between the measured paper feed quantity and a predetermined value. When "paper empty" is detected by the sensor, the central processing unit judges it to be "real paper empty" when no "paper existence" is detected during the period that predetermined paper feed is conducted after the detection of the "paper empty", and then suspends the printing operation. Thus, it is possible to prevent the central processing unit from erroneously judging a printed portion of the recording paper to be the trailing end of the recording paper.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printer.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a typical conventional printer, a reflection type photosensor is provided at the upstream side of a printing head. The photosensor faces a platen across paper.
A central processing unit receives an output voltage from the photosensor, and if the voltage is higher than a predetermined value, the central processing unit judges that paper exists (hereinafter referred to as "paper existence"), whereas, if the voltage is lower than the predetermined value, the central processing unit judges that no paper exists (hereinafter referred to as "paper empty").
After the trailing end of the recording paper has passed the photosensor, the photosensor comes to face the black platen, so that the output voltage from the photosensor becomes lower than the standard value. In consequence, the central processing unit judges that no paper exists, and suspends the printing operation after a predetermined period of time has passed. In addition, the central processing unit causes the recording paper to be discharged to the outside of the printer.
In the above-described printer, when recording paper having a printed portion is fed, the photosensor may face the printed portion of the recording paper. If such occurs, the central processing unit may malfunction such that even if the trailing end of the recording paper has not yet passed the photosensor, the central processing unit misjudges that no paper exists, and even during printing, it suspends the printing operation and discharges the recording paper to the outside of the printer.

Printer with upstream sensor used to determine paper empty condition


An oil separator for oil-flooded rotary vane vacuum pumps has a filter housing (10) and a plurality of filter cartridges (14) disposed therein through which the pumping medium flows. The filter cartridges (14) are each inserted through a respective opening (16) in an outer housing wall (12) of the filter housing (10) and are secured to the housing wall (12) so as to be detachable and tight with respect to media.

In oil-flooded pumps, in particular rotary vane vacuum pumps, the pumping medium is directed through an oil separator on the delivery side of the pump in order to separate it from oil carried along with the medium and to recycle the oil into the oil bath. The oil separator is essentially formed by a set of filter cartridges which are disposed in a filter housing and through which the pumping medium flows. The filter cartridges need to be replaced at regular intervals. The filter housing has a housing cover or a special maintenance cover which can be removed after a few fastening screws have been unscrewed for providing access to the filter cartridges. Each filter cartridge is secured in the filter housing by a threaded plastic holder. Once the plastic holder has been released, the filter cartridge can be pulled out of the filter housing.

Oil separator for pumps overflowing with oil