Toner and paper powder adhering to and carried by the image non-forming surface of a paper sheet in a developing unit are prevented from fixedly transferring and adhering to the inner wall of the developing unit and the inner wall of the paper sheet introduction port of a fixing unit. As a result, the paper sheet is smoothly carried from the developing unit to the fixing unit while reliably preventing a paper sheet jam. To prevent the adherence of toner and paper powder to the inner walls, first ribs are formed on the bottom surface of the top cover of the developing chamber of the processing unit and second ribs are formed on the paper sheet introduction port side of the top cover of the fixing room of the fixing unit. The first ribs and the second ribs are staggered with respect to one another. In addition, a discharging film is disposed between pairs of adjacent first ribs on the bottom surface of the top cover of the developing chamber.

1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to an image forming apparatus which supplies toner to an electrostatic latent image formed on a sensitive body of a developing unit to form a toner image and transfers the toner image to a paper sheet and then heats it via a fixing unit to thermally fix the toner image and to form an image. In particular, the invention relates to an image forming apparatus which can prevent the toner, paper powder or other contaminants sticking to an image non-forming surface in the developing unit from sticking to the inner wall of the cover of the developing unit and the inner wall of a paper introduction port of the fixing unit and can smoothly transfer the paper sheet from the developing unit to the fixing unit, whereby a paper jam can be prevented with reliability.
2. Description of Related Art
Various kinds of image forming apparatuses, such as laser printers or the like, using an electrophotography method, have been proposed. The specification and drawings of a Japanese Published Patent Document No. 9-319201, for example, describes an image forming apparatus categorized broadly into a paper carrying unit, a laser scanning unit, a toner supply unit, a developing unit, a fixing unit and the like. In such an image forming apparatus, an electrostatic latent image is formed on the surface of a photosensitive drum in the developing unit, according to the image data, by the laser scanning unit and toner is supplied to the photosensitive drum by the toner supply unit to form a toner image, according to the electrostatic latent image, on the surface of the photosensitive drum, and the toner image is transferred to the paper sheet carried into the developing unit from the paper carrying unit by a transfer roller and the photosensitive drum. The paper sheet is then heated by the fixing unit to fix the toner image.
When the image is formed in this way, if the paper sheet carrying speed of the fixing unit side is set larger than the paper sheet carrying speed of the developing unit side, an image forming position on the paper sheet might be shifted. Therefore, in general, the paper carrying speed of the developing unit side is set larger than the paper sheet carrying speed of the fixing unit side. Accordingly, there is a tendency for the paper sheet to which the toner image is transferred to be carried to the fixing unit side while it makes contact with the inner, upper wall of the cover of the developing unit and that, after it makes contact with the top side of a paper sheet introduction port formed in the cover of the fixing unit, it is carried into the fixing unit.
In a conventional image forming apparatus, however, the toner, paper powder and other contaminants are dispersed in the developing unit. Therefore, while the paper sheet is carried in the developing unit, the toner and, the paper powder result in sticking to the image non-forming surface of the paper sheet, i.e., top surface of the paper sheet as transported. Moreover, since the paper sheet carrying speed of the developing unit is set larger than the paper sheet carrying speed of the fixing unit, the paper sheet is carried toward the fixing unit side while it comes into contact with the inner wall of the cover of the developing unit and, because it comes into contact with the top side of the paper sheet introduction port formed in the cover of the fixing unit, the toner and the paper powder sticking to the paper sheet stick to the inner upper wall of the cover of the developing unit and the top end portion of the paper sheet introduction port of the cover of the fixing unit.
The toner and the paper powder sticking in this way prevent the paper sheet from being smoothly carried from the developing unit to the fixing unit and, in particular, if the toner and the paper powder stick to the paper sheet introduction port of the fixing unit, there arises a problem that a paper sheet jam might occur at the paper sheet introduction port.
It is an object of the invention to overcome the above-described problems, and to prevent toner, paper powder and other contaminants, sticking to an image non-forming surface of a paper sheet in a developing unit, from sticking to the inner wall of the cover of a developing unit and the inner wall of a paper sheet introduction port. Another object of the invention is to smoothly carry the paper sheet from the developing unit to a fixing unit and to reliably prevent a paper sheet jam.
In order to accomplish the above-described objects, in an image forming apparatus according to one aspect of the invention, there is provided an image forming apparatus comprising developing means which supplies toner according to an electrostatic latent image formed on a sensitive body and forms a toner image, transfer means which is disposed opposite to the above-described sensitive body and transfers the toner image formed on the sensitive body to a paper sheet carried by a paper sheet carrying unit, and fixing means which heats and fixes the toner image transferred to the paper sheet, and further comprises a first guide member which is disposed in the downstream side of the above-described transfer means in the direction that carries the paper sheet along the carrying path of the paper sheet and which comes into contact with the lead edge of the paper sheet on which the above-described toner image is formed and directs the lead edge of the paper sheet toward the above-described fixing means, and a second guide member which is disposed in the upstream side of the above-described fixing means in the direction that carries the paper sheet along the carrying path of the paper sheet and which comes into contact with the lead edge of the paper sheet on which the above-described toner image is formed and introduces the lead edge of the paper sheet into the above-described fixing means.
In the above image forming apparatus, the paper sheet to which the toner image is transferred by the sensitive body in the developing means is carried toward the fixing means along the paper sheet carrying path while the surface of the lead edge thereof comes into contact with the first guide member. The paper sheet discharged by the developing means is introduced into the fixing means while the surface of the lead edge thereof comes into contact with the second guide member.
At this time, the toner and the paper powder dispersed in the developing means stick to the image non-forming surface of the paper sheet via the top surface of the first guide member, but the amount of such contaminants is extremely small in comparison with the amount of the toner and the paper powder when the toner and the paper powder sticking to the whole bottom surface of the cover of the developing means might stick to the paper sheet and hence there is no problem. Therefore, the toner and the paper powder scarcely stick to the apex surfaces of the first guide member and the second guide member. Accordingly, it is possible to prevent the toner and the paper powder from sticking to the inner wall of the cover of the developing means and the inner wall of the paper sheet introduction port of the fixing means and to smoothly carry the paper sheet from the developing means to the fixing means via the first guide member and the second guide member, which reliably prevents a paper sheet jam.
Moreover, the image forming apparatus is preferably characterized in that the above-described first guide member and the above-described second guide member in the above image forming apparatus are mounted plurally in the direction which intersects the carrying path of the above-described paper sheet, and that the above-described first guide member and the above-described second guide member are staggered from each other. Since a plurality of first guide members and a plurality of second guide members are staggered from each other in the image forming apparatus of the invention, they are not aligned. Therefore, even if the toner and the paper powder sticking to the apex surfaces of the first guide members stick to the paper sheet, it is possible to reliably prevent the toner and the paper powder from sticking to the second guide members. Accordingly, the toner and the paper powder never fixedly stick to the inner wall of the paper sheet introduction port of the fixing means.
Further, in the above image forming apparatus, the first carrying speed of the paper sheet expelled by the above-described developing means is set equal to or larger than the second carrying speed of the paper sheet expelled by the above-described fixing means and that, when the above-described paper sheet is carried, the lead edge of the paper sheet comes into contact with the first guide member and then comes into contact with the second guide member, and is guided into the above-described fixing means along the slant of the second guide member. In the image forming apparatus of the invention, the lead edge of the paper sheet comes into contact with the first guide member and then comes into contact with the second guide member and is then guided into the fixing means along the slant of the second guide member, as described above, based on a relationship between the first carrying speed of the developing means and the second carrying speed of the fixing means. In this respect, as described above, the paper sheet is smoothly carried from the developing means to the fixing means by the first guide member and the second guide member without sticking the toner and the paper powder to the inner wall of the cover of the developing means and the inner wall of the paper sheet introduction port of the fixing means.
Preferably, in the above image forming apparatus, a discharging film is disposed between the above-described first guide members. In the above image forming apparatus, the paper sheet is effectively discharged at the developing means side by the discharging film and hence it is possible to prevent the toner and the paper powder sticking to the paper sheet. Furthermore, the image forming apparatus is preferably characterized in that the above-described first guide member is composed of a first rib formed on the paper sheet discharge portion of the cover of the above-described developing means and that the above-described second guide member is composed of a second rib formed on the paper introduction portion of the cover of the above-described fixing means. In addition, in the image forming apparatus, the above-described transfer means is disposed above the above-described paper sheet carrying path and that the above-described first rib protrudes downward from the cover of said developing means and that the above-described second rib protrudes downward from the cover of the above-described fixing means.
In the image forming apparatus, the first rib as the first guide member can be integrally formed with the cover of the above-described developing means in a state where it protrudes downward and the second rib as the second guide member can be integrally formed with the cover of the above-described fixing means in a state where it protrudes downward.


By blending a silazane with an organic silicon polymer such as polycarbosilane and polysilazane and inorganic powder such as alumina and silica, there is obtained a coating composition which can be applied and baked onto metallic and non-metallic substrates to form dielectric coatings which are improved in many properties including substrate adhesion, hardness, electrical insulation, heat resistance, water resistance, and chemical resistance.

There is an increasing demand for coatings on metallic and non-metallic substrates subject to elevated temperatures for protecting the substrates against oxidation and corrosion. Polyorganosiloxane base coating compositions are known to be more heat resistant than conventional organic polymer coatings such as polyester and polyimide coatings. However, even polyorganosiloxane coatings could not withstand temperatures as high as 400.degree. C. or higher in an air atmosphere for a long time and were likely to peel off under such conditions.
Several heat resistant coating compositions have been proposed. For example, Japanese Patent Application Kokai (JP-A) No. 54768/1987 discloses a composition comprising polytitanocarbosilane, silicone resin, and inorganic filler; JP-A 235370/1987 discloses a composition comprising polycarbosilane, silicone resin, and inorganic filler; JP-A 92969/1990 discloses a blend of an organometallic polymer and silicon dioxide; and Japanese Patent Publication (JP-B) No. 50658/1983 discloses the use of a borosiloxane polymer. However, these coating compositions had poor electrical properties at elevated temperatures. Especially the last-mentioned composition experienced a loss of water resistance and-electrical properties at elevated temperatures. These compositions could not meet all the requirements of coating hardness, heat resistance, electrical insulation, and solvent resistance.
There is a need for a coating composition capable of forming coatings which can meet many requirements including adhesion, heat resistance, coating hardness, and electrical insulation.

Silazane-based, heat resistant, dielectric coating compositions


A fixing apparatus includes a first rotatable member configured to heat, in a fixing nip, an unfixed toner image formed on a sheet with a toner having a parting material. A second rotatable member cooperates with the first rotatable member to form the fixing nip. A cleaner is configured to clean the first rotatable member, and a covering member is configured to cover the first rotatable member over a range from the cleaner to an entrance of the fixing nip along a rotational direction of the first rotatable member with a gap D of not less than 0.5 mm and not more than 3.5 mm. In addition, the gap D (mm) between the covering member and the first rotatable member and the peripheral speed V of the first rotatable member (mm/s) satisfy 0.5≤D≤0.0059×V+0.72.

In the field of an electrophotographic image forming apparatus, it has been a common practice to use such toner that contains a releasing agent (wax), to form a toner image on a sheet of recording medium, and to use a fixing device to fix the formed toner image to the sheet by applying heat and pressure to the sheet and to the toner image thereon.
It is known that, during the fixation of a toner image, the wax in toner vaporizes, and then, immediately condenses. It has been known by the inventors of the present invention that, after the wax vaporizes and condenses, a large amount of microscopic particles of wax (that are several nanometers (nm) to several hundreds of nm in diameter, and hereafter may be referred to as dust) remain floating in the adjacencies of the fixing member of the fixing device. Unless these microscopic particles of wax, which result from the condensation of vaporized wax from the toner, are dealt with immediately after the condensation, it is possible that most of the particles will disperse out of the fixing device, which will have undesirable effects upon the images that are being formed by the image forming apparatus. Thus, in order to prevent the microscopic wax particles from dispersing out of the fixing device, it has been desired to turn the microscopic wax particles into particles of a larger size as soon as they are formed through the condensation of the vaporized wax.
In the case of the fixing device disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2010-217580, which employs an electromagnetic induction heating system, a heating member is disposed in the adjacencies of the coil holder of the device, in order to prevent the wax from cumulatively solidifying on the coil holder. More concretely, the fixing device is configured so that, as the cumulatively solidified wax on the coil holder is heated by the heating member, the wax liquefies and drips down.
In the case of the fixing device disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2011-112708, the cleaning web for removing the microscopic particles, which are remaining adhering to the fixation roller, is made of such material that contains an agent that is capable of capturing the microscopic particles.
In the case of the fixing devices disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2010-217580 and No. 2011-112708, however, it is impossible to prevent the large amount of dust, which is present in the adjacencies of the fixing member, from dispersing out of the fixing device. In other words, these patents cannot be solutions to the above-described problem.

Fixing device having a cover member that covers a fixation roller


A pressure control valve including an electromagnet portion, a pressure governing valve portion coupled to the electromagnet portion and hydraulic oil enclosed in said electromagnet portion. The pressure governing valve portion includes a valve sleeve and a spool valve slidably mounted in the valve sleeve so that an output pressure corresponding to an input signal to the electromagnet portion is provided. The electromagnet portion includes a push rod which slides in tandem with the spool valve, a core surrounding the push rod, a coil assembly disposed on the outer surface of the core, and a plunger secured to the push rod so that the spool valve slides responsive to the input signal. An oil passage is provided between the core and the coil assembly as that movable portions of the electromagnet portion move without any resistance from the hydraulic oil.

The present invention relates to a pressure control valve, and, more particularly, to a pressure control valve capable of controlling fluid pressure in response to an electric signal.
Pressure control valves are represented by a diaphragm type pressure control valve, wherein the surface of the diaphragm receives feedback pressure, and a spool type pressure control valve wherein the end surface of the spool receives feedback pressure. The present invention relates to an electromagnetic pressure-control valve of the spool type.
The spool type electromagnetic pressure-control valve is usually designed in such a manner that a load caused by the electromagnet, a spring load, and an output pressure feedback load act on a spool valve which slides in a valve sleeve having a supply port, an output port, and an exhaust port. The output pressure is controlled to a level which corresponds to the electric signal supplied to the electromagnet portion by arranging the balance among the above-described loads (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 60-52509).
The pressure control valve of the type described above is usually operated at a temperature about 150.degree. C. in the case where the valves are included in hydraulic pressure control circuits for automatic transmissions for automobiles. The higher the hydraulic oil temperature becomes, the more hydraulic pressure vibrations are generated, causing pulsations.
Hitherto, the above-described hydraulic pressure vibrations present at high temperatures are prevented by causing a damping effect by having the electromagnet portion constituting the pressure control valve filled with hydraulic oil. That is, even if the plunger tries to vibrate in synchronization with the hydraulic pressure vibrations, the viscous resistance of the enclosed hydraulic oil prevents the plunger from vibrating.
However, the conventional pressure control valve of the type described above causes a problem in that hydraulic oil thus enclosed in the electromagnet portion interrupts the smooth operation of the pressure control valve when the pressure control valve must be operated at low temperature in the case where, for example, the automobile is operated in winter. That is, the viscosity of the hydraulic oil is inevitably raised at low temperature, causing the hydraulic oil to become a viscous fluid acting as a resistance interrupting the movement of the movable portions in the electromagnet portion of the pressure control valve. This leads to a problem in that the pressure governing valve portion deteriorates as regards its designed hydraulic pressure response with respect to the electric signal. As a result, the pressure control valve cannot be reliably operated.


Methods, systems and computer program products for updating a wireless-based location records database to provide more accurate indoor positioning are provided. Aspects include receiving a wireless-based location records database including a plurality of wireless-based location records. Aspects also include receiving Wi-Fi data and gait data from a user device. Aspects also include determining an approximate location of a user associated with the user device based on the Wi-Fi data and the plurality of wireless-based location records. Aspects also include receiving image capture data from one or more image capture devices viewing the approximate location of the user. Aspects also include identifying the user based on the image capture data and the gait data. In response to determining an accurate location of the user based on the image capture data, aspects include updating the wireless-based location records database.

The present invention generally relates to mobile device positioning, and more specifically, to updating a wireless-based location records database to provide more accurate indoor positioning.
A global positioning system (GPS) is commonly used by mobile devices, such as smartphones, to determine the location of the mobile device. While such commercially available GPS systems can provide meter-level location accuracy in open environments, GPS signals are often ineffective for indoor positioning as GPS signals will be attenuated and scattered by indoor environments. Accordingly, positioning technology based on Wi-Fi, RFID, acoustic signals and the like have been developed for more accurate indoor positioning. Wi-Fi indoor positioning systems typically operate based on a wireless-based location record (which may alternatively be referred to as "fingerprints") positioning method that involves mapping wireless access point (WAP) signals strengths ("wireless-based location record database") for a plurality of locations during a setup phase that is manually performed. The location of a wireless device can then be determined by comparing the signal strengths of the WAPs detected by the wireless device to the map of wireless-based location records. However, because the detected signal strengths (and thus the accuracy of the Wi-Fi positioning system) are affected by changing environmental factors such as the layout of a room, it is often necessary to periodically update the wireless-based location records database.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION


A system (1) for collecting liquid, including a main collecting chamber (10), a main duct section (11, 12, 13) connected to the main collecting chamber (10) in a fluid-communicating manner, and an auxiliary collecting chamber (20, 30, 40). The system (1) has an auxiliary duct section (21, 38, 39) connected to the auxiliary collecting chamber (20, 30, 40) in a fluid-communicating manner for connection to the main duct section (11, 12, 13). The main duct section (11, 12, 13) and the auxiliary duct section (21, 38, 39) form a duct (35, 36, 37) when the main duct section is connected to the auxiliary duct section. A water-soluble closing component (14, 15, 16) closes the duct (35, 36, 37). A hygienic collecting device for liquid, which has a short evacuation time and a flexible collection volume, is provided with the system (1).

A suction device is specified for surgeries or other medical treatments in order to make it possible to clear the throat by suction in case the patient vomits. Further, body fluids, which obstruct the view to the wound, are suctioned and collected in collecting containers. The collecting containers are disposed of after the surgery. The collecting containers must collect body fluids hygienically, i.e., the body fluids must not escape to the outside and also not into the pumping device.
It is known that full collecting containers may be replaced with empty collecting containers during the surgery. However, the suction of the body fluid is interrupted hereby. Even if collecting containers of different sizes are available, the quantity of body fluid that will be discharged and must then be collected must be estimated in advance. Should this estimate be incorrect, it will be necessary to change the collecting container despite the preparatory estimation. The surgeon cannot optimally see the wound any longer due to the interruption during the replacement of the collecting container and the time needed for the entire surgery may become longer, which is disadvantageous for the patient. If an excessively large collecting container was selected, the work process is inefficient, because a collecting container is not usually used for a plurality of surgeries for hygienic reasons.
Further, the time needed for evacuating the container, during which no wound secretion can be suctioned, will increase.
It is known in this connection that a plurality of collecting containers may be connected in series or parallel. The containers are equipped here with valves, which are opened via floats, which indicate the filling level in the collecting container being filled. This device, with the combination of the floats and valves, has a complicated configuration and is susceptible to malfunction, because, for example, a float may be stuck or an error may occur in the valve control and the corresponding valve will not consequently open or will not open in time.

System and device for collecting liquids


A polycentric variable axis hinge for use in an orthopedic knee brace to provide a mechanical joint between the femoral and tibial cuffs of the brace. The hinge includes a femoral stem which is attached to the femoral cuff and which extends downwardly from the femoral cuff, and it also includes a tibial stem attached to the tibial cuff and extending upwardly from the tibial cuff. The ends of the two stems overlap one another to provide a joint. The distal end of the femoral stem has first and second variable radii slots formed in it, the slots being positioned one above the other and extending in the anterior-posterior direction, and the lower slot being longer than the upper slot. A first bearing pin is mounted on the distal end of the tibial stem, and it is received in the upper slot. Two additional bearing pins are mounted on the distal end of the tibial stem and are received in the lower slot. The action is such that angular movement of the stems relative to one another causes them to slide, glide and rotate relative to one another to replicate the actual movement of the knee joint of the user as the leg is bent and straightened.

The present invention relates to a polycentric variable axis hinge for use, in particular, but not exclusively, in knee braces intended to reinforce an injured knee joint.
The human knee is acknowledged as one of the weakest joints in the body. It is the articulating joint between the thigh and calf muscle groups, and it supports the weight of the body while a person is walking or running. The joint is held together by two small but strong ligaments, namely, the anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments. Knee instability arising out of cartilage damage, the ligament strain and other causes is relatively commonplace since the knee joint is subjected to significant loads during the course of almost any kind of physical activity requiring the use of the legs.
The thigh and legs of the human body are articulated to each other through the knee joint of which the principal motions are extension and flexion by rotation about a horizontal axis extending across the knee in a medial-lateral direction. These motions are complex because they take place about a rotational axis which is not fixed, as is the case with the elbow, but which shifts slightly across the knee in the anterior-posterior direction.
It is important for an adequate knee brace to follow the shifting path of the rotational axis of the knee as closely as possible, and accordingly the principal objective of the present invention is to provide a knee brace hinge which is capable of fulfilling such a criterion.
Additionally, and particularly in the case of injured or weak knees, means must be provided in the hinge of the knee brace to control the extension of the knee joint and to stop the extension, for example, short of 15%-5% of full extension, so as to prevent of knee ligaments injuries. Another objective of the invention is to provide a knee brace hinge, which incorporates improved stop means that may be adjustable to tailor the hinge to individuals, to control the extension of the knee joint and to stop the extension at a predetermined degree of full extension.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,773,404, and its parent U.S. Pat. No. 4,723,539, and in U.S. Pat. No. 4,890,607, a multi-axis controlled motion knee hinge is disclosed. The hinge is constructed to constrain the tibia to slide rearwardly relative to the femur for a predetermined distance throughout an initial range of flexion of the knee from a straight leg position, and beyond that initial range of flexion, to rotate relative to the femur along a predetermined arcuate path.
In the construction of the hinge described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,890,607, the end portions of femoral and tibial lengths are interconnected by a cam assembly comprised of a pair of cam slots in one of the links and cam follower pins mounted on the other link and engaging the slots. In the particular construction described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,890,607, each slot has a straight segment adjoining an arcuate segment of equal radius. The variable axis hinge of the present invention is of the same general type as the hinge disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,890,607, but it is constructed in a manner such that the hinge more closely follows the actual movement of the knee, as the leg is bent in the rearward direction.
Accordingly, a general objective of the present invention is to provide an improved multi-axis controlled hinge for an orthopedic knee brace which is constructed to have the ability accurately to replicate the complex movements of the knee of a wearer, as the leg is moved.
Another objective of the invention is to provide such an improved multi-axis hinge having relatively high integral strength, as well as tolerance precision and production efficiency.
Yet another objective of the invention is to provide such a variable axis knee brace hinge which is constructed in a manner that enables integration into the hinge of a stop for limiting the range of movement of the leg, and one which may be tailored for individual wearers.
The foregoing objects of the invention are achieved in accordance with a preferred embodiment, wherein a knee brace hinge mechanism is provided which utilizes first and second variable radii camming slots and corresponding cam pin followers, wherein one of the camming slots serves to provide the anterior motion of the upper portion of the hinge, while the second camming slot provides for the unicentric phase of the hinge artarokinematics. During the initial range of motion, pivoting occurs through a short multi-radii slot segment about one of the cam pin followers disposed within that slot. After that cam pin follower reaches the anterior end of the slot, it serves as the axis of rotation or pivot point for movement of other cam pin followers along the second variable radii slot. Such a construction provides an increase in tolerance precision, a precise following of the complex motion of the knee joint, and forceful action of the hinge through the entire range of motion.

Polycentric variable axis hinge for an orthopedic knee brace

4267 Marina City Dr., Suite 1014, West Tower South


A rhythm generator which is provided with a plurality of rhythm pattern memories, each storing one rhythm pattern and outputting the rhythm pattern in response to a rhythm clock, a bar counter for counting the number of bars with the rhythm clock, and means supplied with the output from the bar counter to selectively assign desired ones of the rhythm pattern memories one after another for a desired number of bars.

1. Field of The Invention
This invention relates to a rhythm generator which is adapted so that desired rhythm patterns, each corresponding to one bar, are automatically generated in a sequential order over a desired number of bars during playing of a tune.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventional rhythm generators usually generate one selected rhythm repeatedly throughout a tune being played. In practice, however, substantially no tunes are played in the same rhythm pattern; in general, they are played inserting some variations of the selected rhlythm at proper intervals. Hence the rhythm produced by the conventional rhythm generators inevitably feels monotonous.
To avoid such monotony, there has recently been proposed a rhythm generator capable of producing variations of a rhythm, but the variations are automatically switched at equal time intervals or manually at desired times. In the former case, however, the rhythms are each repeated on the same cycle and hence still feel monotonous, though less monotous than in the past, and in the latter case such manual operation is difficult for a player using his both hands and feet during playing.


An energy recovering apparatus and method that is capable of reducing a power consumed during a sustaining discharge. In the apparatus and method, after an electric charge is charged in a current charging device to supply a display panel with a current, an external voltage is applied to the display panel to cause the sustaining discharge.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an energy recovering technique, and more particularly to energy recovering apparatus and method that are capable of reducing a power consumed during sustaining discharge.
2. Description of the Related Art
A plasma display panel(PDP) is a device for displaying a picture by utilizing a gas discharge. The PDP provides a large-scale screen as well as an improved image quality owing to the recent development. The PDP is largely classified into a direct current(DC) driving system performing an opposite discharge and an alternating current(AC) driving system performing a surface discharge in accordance with its driving strategy. The AC driving system has been highlighted because it has a lower power consumption and a longer life time than the DC driving system. The PDP of AC driving system is intervened with a dielectric to apply an AC voltage and performs a discharge every its half period. The AC driving system is classified into a sub-frame system and a sub-field system. When 256 gray scales are expressed, the sub-field system makes a time division of one frame into 8 sub-fields. Each sub-field is time-divided into a reset interval for initializing the entire screen, an address interval for writing a data while scanning the entire screen in a line-sequence manner and a sustaining interval for sustaining a luminous state of cells into which the data is written. A time is assigned such that the reset interval and the address interval of each sub-field are same at each sub-field while the sustaining interval increases at a ratio of 2.sup.n (n=0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7) depending on a relative ration of the brightness. The gray scales proportional to the corresponding sustaining interval is implemented at each sub-field and the gray scales implemented at each sub-field are combined, thereby expressing 256 gray scales from one frame.
The sub-field system has a problem in that a power consumption is large at the time of charging or discharging the PDP in the sustaining interval. In the PDP of AC driving system, its driving circuitry includes an energy recovering circuit for recovering a voltage discharged from the panel again to charge the panel.
Referring to FIG. 1, there is an energy recovering apparatus that includes a scanning/sustaining electrode unit driving cell 10, hereinafter referred to as "Y electrode unit driving cell", connected to a Y electrode 1, and a common electrode unit driving cell 20, hereinafter referred to as "Z electrode unit driving cell", connected to a Z electrode 2. The Y electrode 1 and the Z electrode 2 are connected to a panel capacitor Cp. The panel capacitor Cp equivalently represents an electrostatic capacity formed between the Y electrode 1 and the Z electrode 2. The Y electrode 1 and the Z electrode 2 are discharged by a sustaining pulse applied to the Y electrode unit driving cell 10 and the Z electrode unit driving cell 20. The Y electrode unit driving cell 10 includes an external capacitor Cex1 connected to a ground terminal GND, first and third switches S1 and S3 connected, in parallel, to the external capacitor Cex1, second and fourth switches S2 and S4 connected, in series, between a sustaining voltage supply Vs and the ground terminal GND, and an inductor L1 connected between a first node n1 and a second node n2. The Z electrode unit driving cell 20 has the same configuration as the Y electrode unit driving cell 10 and is connected to the panel capacitor Cp in such a manner to be symmetrical to the Y electrode unit driving cell 10. Specifically, the Z electrode unit driving cell 20 includes an external capacitor Cex2 connected to a ground terminal GND, fifth and seventh switches S5 and S7 connected, in parallel, to the external capacitor Cex2, sixth and eighth switches S6 and S8 connected, in series, between a sustaining voltage supply Vs and the ground terminal GND, and an inductor L2 connected between a third node n3 and a fourth node n4. Diodes D1, D2, D3 and D4 connected to the first node n1 and the fourth node n4 are responsible for limiting a backward current.
The operation of the energy recovering apparatus will be explained on a basis of the Y electrode unit driving cell 10 with reference to FIG. 2. When the panel capacitor Cp is charged and discharged several times by the sustaining pulse, a voltage is charged in the external capacitors Cex1 and Cex2. In a t1 interval, the first switch S1 is closed. Then, a voltage charged in the external capacitor Cex1 is applied, via the first switch S1 and the inductor L1, to the inductor L1. Since the inductor L1 constructs a serial LC resonance circuit along with the panel capacitor Cp, the panel capacitor Cp begins to be discharged by a LC resonance waveform. At this time, the eighth switch S8 of the Z electrode unit driving cell 20 has been closed. In a t2 interval, the second switch S2 is closed at a resonant point of the LC resonance waveform. Then, since the sustaining voltage Vs is applied to the panel capacitor Cp, the panel capacitor Cp maintains a sustaining voltage level. A discharge is caused between the Y electrode 1 and the Z electrode 2 in a time interval when the panel capacitor Cp maintains a sustaining voltage level. In a t3 interval, the second switch S2 is opened and the third switch S3 is closed and thus the panel capacitor Cp begins to be discharged. At this time, a voltage charged in the panel capacitor Cp is applied, via the inductor L1 and the third switch S3, to the external capacitor Cex1 to charge the external capacitor Cex1. Next, the fourth switch S4 is closed. Then, a voltage of the panel capacitor Cp drops into a ground voltage. The Z electrode unit driving cell 20 charges and discharges a panel capacitor Cp alternately with the Y electrode unit driving cell 10.
As a result, the energy recovering apparatus recovers a voltage discharged from the panel capacitor Cp by utilizing the external capacitors Cex1 and Cex2 and applies it to the panel capacitor Cp, thereby reducing an inordinate power consumption during the sustaining discharge. Since an efficiency and the brightness of the PDP are basically influenced by a current, they has a limit as long as the panel capacitor Cp is charged by means of voltage sources such as external capacitors Cex1 and Cex2.
On the other hand, in the sub-frame driving system, an addressing interval of the entire screen is distributed partially every period of a sustaining pulse to continue the sustaining process without an interruption. In the sub-frame system, when it is intended to express the 256 gray scales, the entire screen is divided into 8 time regions T, T/2, T/4, T/8, T/16, T/32, T/64 and T/128 in the horizontal direction and a discharge weighting value is assigned to each time region in similarity to the sub-field system. Accordingly, at an optional time, 8 screen blocks with a different brightness level, that is, in a different sub-field state exist in the entire screen. 8 scanning lines selected in one sustaining pulse period repeats a process moved downward by one scanning line each time the sustaining pulse period is changed. In such a sub-frame driving system, the sustaining pulse includes a level of more than three steps such that it has a reference level of a writing pulse and a reference level of an erasing pulse every period. Since the energy recovering apparatus as shown in FIG. 1 is connected in cascade as many as the number of step so as to generate a sustaining pulse having a level of more than three steps, the configuration of the driving circuitry becomes complicated.

Multi-step type energy recovering apparatus and method


Object is to provide a method of constructing a library of peptides having, at a desired position in the random sequence of each peptide, an amino acid having a portion capable of binding to a target. The invention provides a method of producing a library of peptides having, at a designated position in the random sequence of each peptide, a special amino acid having a portion capable of binding to a target, including (i) preparing a library of mRNAs having, in the mRNA sequence coding for a random amino acid sequence, a base sequence having an altered codon encoding the special amino acid, (ii) preparing an aminoacyl tRNA with the special amino acid linked to a tRNA encoded by the altered codon, and (iii) translating the mRNAs by using a cell-free translation system containing the aminoacyl tRNA to obtain a library of peptides having, in the random sequence thereof, a predetermined special amino acid.

Low molecular compounds that have a structure similar to the substrate of an enzyme and bind to an active pocket of the enzyme have been used widely as an inhibitor of the enzyme. There is however a plurality of enzymes having a similar active pocket in the living body so that it is known that such low molecular compounds by themselves cannot easily serve as a specific inhibitor. On the other hand, peptidic molecules typified by antibodies have attracted attentions as next-generation pharmaceuticals because they can recognize the surface of a molecule over a wide range and specifically bind to a specific target.
For acquiring such peptidic molecules that bind to a specific target, a method of screening a random peptide library has been used widely. In particular, various in vitro display methods such as ribosome display method and mRNA display method using translation are excellent because a high diversity library can be constructed and screened in a tube in a short period of time. The term "in vitro display method" means a system facilitating concentration and amplification (selection) of active species by linking a phenotype and a genotype coding for the sequence thereof through a non-covalent bond or a covalent bond to display the phenotype on the genotype and using a replication system reconstructed in a test tube. The greatest characteristic of this system is that it is conducted without using a prokaryote or eukaryote as a medium so that a high-activity physiological substance can be isolated from a library having great diversity. As a typical comparison example, phage display using Escherichia coli as a replication medium enables selection from a library having diversity as high as 107. In vitro display, on the other hand, enables searching from a library having diversity as high as 1012. Examples of the in vitro display include ribosome display, mRNA display, and RaPID display (unpublished international patent application PCT/JP2010/68549). As one example, mRNA display will next be described below.
The mRNA display method is a technology of binding a polypeptide to an mRNA which is a template thereof to match the amino acid sequence of the polypeptide to the nucleic acid sequence. By binding puromycin, which is an analogue of the end of an acylated tRNA, to the 3′-end of the mRNA via an appropriate linker and adding it to a translation reaction, puromycin penetrates in the site A of ribosome and forms a covalent bond with a growing peptide. As a result, the peptide molecule which is a translation product is linked to the mRNA via puromycin (Patent Documents 1 to 3, Non-patent Documents 1 and 2).
Thus, the in vitro display enables screening of a peptide library having diversity as high as 1012. Since such peptide library is constructed by making use of a vital function, however, only a peptide library composed only of proteinogenic amino acids has conventionally been constructed. It is expected that if it is possible to overcome the problem of this library composed only of proteinogenic amino acids; incorporate, in an amino acid structure, a low molecular inhibitor having insufficient inhibitory ability or specificity on its own; and construct and screen a library of peptides containing such special amino acid, inhibitors exhibiting high inhibitory ability and selectivity which cannot be attained by using a low molecular compound or a peptide alone can be obtained.
With recent development in technology called "genetic code expansion" or "reprogramming of genetic code", it actually becomes possible to prepare and screen a library of peptides having a special amino acid by using various display methods such as phage display.
In genetic code expansion, it becomes possible to synthesize proteins or peptides containing a special amino acid by making use of stop codons or artificial four-base codons which are not used for assigning an amino acid in a natural translation system and allocating these codons to the special amino acid. Since the number of stop codons or usable four-base codons is limited, the number of usable special amino acids simultaneously is however limited (substantially, three or less special amino acids).
There are three reports on construction and screening examples of a special peptide library by making use of this "genetic code expansion". The first one is on the construction of an N-methylphenylalanine-containing peptide library and screening of this library using mRNA display, which is made by R. Roberts, et al (Non-patent Document 3). According to this report, in spite of designing so that N-methylamino acid appears at a certain probability in a random peptide sequence, all the peptides obtained by actually screening with G protein as a target are composed of typical 20 amino acids and an N-methylphenylalanine-containing peptide is not obtained. The second one is on the construction of a peptide library incorporating sulfotyrosine therein and screening of this library using a phage, which is made by P. G. Schultz, et al. According to this report, they have succeeded in constructing a phage which has displayed scFv containing a random region designed so that sulfotyrosine appears at a certain probability and screening the library with gp120, the membrane protein of HIV virus, as a target and thereby actually acquiring scFv that contains sulfotyrosine and binds to gp120 (Non-patent Document 4). When the scFv thus obtained is expressed not in phage display but is expressed as a single substance, however, it becomes insoluble. In addition, it loses activity in the form of Fab so that an antibody having binding ability to a target has not yet been obtained in practice. The third report is on the construction of a library of peptides containing a special amino acid having a boron functional group that binds to saccharide and screening of this library by using a phage, which is also made by P. G. Schultz, et al (Non-patent Document 5). First, by constructing the above-described phage which has displayed scFv containing a random region designed so that a special amino acid appears at a certain probability and then screening the library using a substrate having a saccharide fixed thereon, they have succeeded in acquiring a sequence containing one or two of the special amino acids. There is however no finding that such peptide has specificity to a certain sugar or sugar chain. Also since the boron functional group originally has a property of forming a covalent bond with the hydroxyl group of sugar, the possibility of nonspecific binding between them cannot be denied. In short, a technology of acquiring scFv having a biologically significant peptide sequence that binds to a sugar chain or sugar protein has not yet been developed.
Any of the above-described technologies is limited to the construction of a library containing only one special amino acid and has not succeeded in acquiring a peptide containing desired physiological functions. They are therefore crude technologies from the standpoint of versatility and reliability of the technology.
Since the 2000s, "genetic code reprogramming" (reprogramming by initialization) in which a special amino acid is assigned to an vacant codon generated by removing a natural amino acid from the system has been developed, making it possible to use four or more special amino acids (Non-patent Documents 6 to 8). No examples have however been known yet in which a random peptide library containing a plurality of special amino acids is constructed by making use of genetic code reprogramming and a peptidic molecule that binds to a specific target is searched from the library.

Peptide library production method, peptide library, and screening method


A bicycle derailleur is basically provided with a base member, a movable member and an electric actuator. The base member is configured to rotate together with a bicycle sprocket apparatus about a rotational axis of the bicycle sprocket apparatus. The movable member is movable relative to the base member to displace a bicycle chain. The electric actuator is configured to electrically actuate the movable member.

Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to a bicycle derailleur. More specifically, the present invention relates to a bicycle derailleur that displaces a chain between a pair of bicycle sprockets using an electric actuator.
Background Information
Many bicycles are provided with a drivetrain that allows the rider to changing a gear ratio for transferring power from the pedals to the rear wheel. Often the drivetrain uses one or more derailleurs to change the gear ratio. A front derailleur is mounted to the bicycle frame adjacent to front sprockets to shift a chain laterally between the front sprockets, while a rear derailleur is mounted adjacent to a hub of the rear wheel to shift the chain laterally between rear sprockets. Recently, some bicycles have been provided with a derailleur that is moved by an electric actuator to make riding easier for the rider. Typically, a rider operates a shifter to actuate the electric actuator of the derailleur to perform a shifting operation.


A fuel supply system for an outboard motor having a main fuel supply for supplying fuel to the engine and an enrichment fuel supply for supplying a different fuel for starting and cold running. The enrichment fuel supply supplies fuel to the engine through a common enrichment control housing assembly that includes an enrichment pump and an enrichment fuel flow control which are both operated simultaneously. In addition, the enrichment fuel source has a vent system including a vent valve that is operated simultaneously with the enrichment fuel valve and the enrichment pump. the

This invention relates to a device for supplying a more volatile fuel to an internal combustion engine in addition to its main, usually less volatile fuel supply.
It is well known to supply enrichment fuel to an internal combustion engine under certain conditions. For example, enrichment fuel may be provided so as to assist in starting and/or for cold running warmup. Generally the enrichment fuel is supplied to the engine only during cold startup, and the supply of enrichment fuel is discontinued only after sufficient warming of the engine has occurred.
Although systems have been available for supplying enrichment fuel, the procedures involving their use are typically burdensome. On startup, the enrichment fuel is made available to and usually primed into the engine, frequently means are provided to continue the supply of enrichment fuel during warming, and finally a procedure for terminating the use of the enrichment fuel after warming is usually necessary.
The problems associated with cold starting are particularly troublesome in the case of the two cycle engine which may be operated with a lower quality of fuel such as alcohol or kerosene, which have a lower volatility than gasoline. There are advantages to operating with a lower volatility fuel, including lower cost. Often, lack of availability of higher volatility fuels necessitates the use of lower volatility fuels such as kerosene.
Some engines have separate valves and a priming pump with a stepwise procedure for operating each one. Further, once the engine is running and while the boat is moving, it may be difficult to perform procedures to shut off the enrichment fuel.
In addition, when a supply of enrichment fuel is present, the tank from which it is withdrawn needs to be vented to displace the withdrawn enrichment fuel with air. Venting the tank open could cause spills if the tank is filled. A separate vent valve would entail another operating step in the startup and the shut-down procedure.
In two cycle engines the main fuel supply typically finds its way to the combustion chamber through the crankcase and then through scavenging ports on the sides of the cylinder walls. On cold startup, the fuel supplied in this way to the engine may significantly condense in the crankcase preventing its effectively reaching the combustion chamber. This is particularly true during the times of low fuel flow, as when the engine is idling and when using low quality low volatility fuels.
Systems which provide to an engine the fuel needed for operation are typically referred to as charge forming devices. In the two-cycle engine, provision may be made for an idling circuit which involves the application a small amount of the main fuel directly to a point near the main combustion chamber of the engine rather than through the crankcase during idling. Any enrichment fuel system should be formed integral with and become a cooperative member of the engine's charge forming device.
Some systems have incorporated pumping devices into the charge forming system of an engine for supplying only a finite amount of enrichment fuel. These pumping devices are generally "one shot" types of devices that only provide an initial squirt of enrichment fuel before starting, and then no more. Other systems merely make a supply of enrichment fuel available, in which case the user may be able to marshal an adequate supply of enrichment fuel in the combustion chamber only after several successive cranking operations. Neither of these devices are satisfactory.
The provision of an enrichment fuel supply device in an engine charging system involving minimum steps for its operation, and which would provide the advantages of both a flowing supply and "one shot" priming would yield new and significant advantages over the prior art.


The present invention relates to apparel, such as clothing, footwear, fabrics, and the like, which incorporates fabrics or chemicals having a low coefficient of friction either overall or in specific areas of the apparel that will minimize the development of blisters, callouses, and irritation of the skin. The invention also includes methods for producing this low friction apparel.

This invention relates to low friction apparel and methods for producing same, wherein apparel is defined as clothing, footwear, fabrics, and the like. More particularly, the invention relates to low friction apparel which incorporates fabrics or chemicals having a low coefficient of friction either overall or in specific areas of the apparel that will minimize the development of blisters, callouses, and irritation of an apparel wearer's body surface. The invention also includes methods for producing the low friction apparel and methods for using a low friction material to reduce the coefficient of friction of a finished article of apparel or the like to reduce irritation.
Apparel is made out of many materials, natural and man-made. They include cotton, wool, silk, linen, leather, vinyl, nylon--polyamides and polyamide co-polymers, LYCRA SPANDEX.TM. in different filament configurations, orlon polyvinylidene fluoride, such as KYNAR.TM., polyester, for example, polyethylene terepthalate, glycol modified polyesters, such as PETG, KODURA.TM., rayon, orlon cellulosic fiber blends, and the like, as well as blends of the above.
Of course, apparel, either directly or indirectly, contacts the body surface of the wearer. The movement of the wearer causes frictional contact between the wearer's body surface and the apparel. This frictional contact can cause irritation, blisters, and callouses. This frictional contact is particularly a problem in sporting apparel wherein the formation of irritations, blisters, and callouses is exacerbated by the rapid and/or repetitious body movements related to the particular activity. Additionally, it is noted that most apparel has specific areas of high body surface/apparel contact which produces a majority of the irritations, blisters, and callouses.
It would be highly desirable to have apparel which has an overall low coefficient of friction or which has material having a low coefficient of friction in areas of high body surface/apparel contact such that irritations, blisters, and callouses are avoided or minimized.


Various embodiments include a method and system for configuring a smart energy network using a link key database. An energy services interface, on the smart energy network, extracts a unique identifier associated with a smart energy device from a communication with the smart energy device. The energy services interface may then use the unique identifier to receive information associated with the smart energy device from the link key database.

Smart energy ("SE") devices and networks have been deployed in homes and businesses as utilities and consumers attempt to better understand and control energy use. SE networks are typically a collection of monitoring, control, and reporting devices located, for example, in a home. Typical SE devices include, for example, thermostats and water, gas, and electric meters. The SE devices generally implement one or more communications protocols to communicate with each other and ultimately the utility or consumer.
In order to safeguard utilities from incidental or malicious interference from SE networks, SE networks and SE devices are secured using various methods. One such method is to encrypt communications between the SE devices on a SE network. Typically, SE devices are preconfigured, by the manufacturer, with a symmetric cipher key, called a link key, to encrypt the SE device's communications until another key used by the SE network, often called a NetKey, can be given to the SE device after it joins the SE network.
A smart energy device joins the smart energy network through an energy services interface ("ESI"), which may also be known as an energy services portal ("ESP"), the ESI also communicating with a utilities' automated metering infrastructure ("AMI") network. In order for the ESI to join a SE device to the SE network, the ESI needs to be configured to identify the SE device and, at least, with the SE device's link key. Typically this process is done by a human installer of the SE device. The installer may determine the SE device's information from the product packaging. The installer may then connect to the AMI network and input the SE device information for the given SE network which is typically identified by an ESI for the SE network. Typically, the AMI network may then push the SE device information down to the ESI. Then the installer activates the SE device which then begins the joining process. For drivers specific to the SE device, the installer may also need to load these to the ESI in a manner similar to configuring the link key. This cumbersome process is then repeated for each SE device added to the SE network.

Smart energy network configuration using link key database


A method for controlling an exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) system which is provided with an intake throttle valve and an EGR valve driven by a motor may include detecting an engine speed and an amount of intake air for each cylinder of an engine while the engine is operating, determining an amount of air flow supplied to the engine based on the engine speed and the amount of intake air for each cylinder, determining an equivalent cross-section of the EGR valve based on the amount of air flow, determining an opening angle of the EGR valve based on the engine speed, the amount of intake air for each cylinder, the amount of air flow, and the equivalent cross-section of the EGR valve, and controlling the EGR valve according to the opening angle of the EGR valve.

Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for controlling an exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) system for an engine, and more particularly, to a method for controlling an EGR system that may accurately monitor and calculate complex flow of EGR gas by forming and applying a formula to form a 3-dimensional map based on an equivalent orthogonal cross-section, an amount of intake air for each cylinder, and an engine speed in an EGR system which controls an intake throttle valve and an EGR valve using one motor.
Description of Related Art
Exhaust gas of an engine contains a large amount of toxic matters, such as CO, HC, and NOx (nitrogen oxides). Particularly, when a combustion temperature of the engine increases, the amount of generation of NOx increases, so that it is necessary to lower a combustion temperature of the engine in order to reduce the amount of NOx contained in the exhaust gas.
Among the reasons for the increase of the combustion temperature of the engine, a major reason is that high temperature heat is momentarily generated according to an increase of a spread speed of flames ignited by a spark plug in a state where an air-fuel ratio of an air-fuel mixed gas inside a combustion chamber is in a rich state.
A method of lowering a combustion temperature of the engine in order to reduce the amount of NOx contained in the exhaust gas includes an exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) method of lowering a combustion temperature of an engine by decreasing a density of mixed gas without changing an inherent air-fuel ratio of the mixed gas by mixing a part of exhaust gas with fresh air and making the mixed gas flow in a combustion chamber.
The exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) method is used for improving fuel efficiency of a gasoline engine, as well as reducing the amount of NOx contained in the exhaust gas. By using the exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) method, it is possible to simultaneously decrease the amount of NOx and advance ignition timing while avoiding a knocking generation region. Accordingly, it is possible to improve output of the engine and fuel efficiency.
In order to accurately control the recirculation of the exhaust gas, the amount of EGR gas recirculated to the intake manifold needs to be accurately controlled.
Among methods of controlling the recirculation of the exhaust gas, a method determines a present driving region, after pre-setting a displacement amount of a low pressure EGR valve for each driving region of an engine and forming a map table based thereon, extracts a control value from the map table, and then controls the low pressure EGR valve based on the extracted control value.
In the method, since it is required to make an EGR gas extracted from an exhaust system (extraction point) flow in an inlet (inflow point) of a compressor, a pressure difference between the two points may be insufficient for the EGR.
As shown in FIG. 1, although the insufficient pressure difference may be complemented by throttling a front side the compressor (not shown), since the amount of EGR gas non-linearly increases due to the throttling, it is difficult to accurately control the amount of EGR gas.
In FIG. 1, reference numbers 10, 20, and 30 refer to an intake throttle valve for throttling, an EGR valve for controlling the amount of the EGR gas, and a motor for controlling opening angles of the valves 10 and 20, respectively.
According to the conventional structure in which one motor such as the motor 30 controls the intake throttle valve 10 and the EGR valve 20, the amount of EGR gas passed through the EGR valve 20 may be one-dimensionally represented through the following equation.
                    m        .            EGR        =                  A        RED                                                2                                                                          γ                                              (                              γ                -                1                            )                                                  RT              EGRV                                                        P        EGRV                          Ψ        EGR                        Ψ      EGR        =          {                                                                                (                                                                              P                            COMP                                                                                P                            EGRV                                                                          )                                                                    2                        γ                                                              -                                                                  (                                                                              P                            COMP                                                                                P                            EGRV                                                                          )                                                                                γ                          +                          1                                                γ                                                                                ,                                                                    P                    COMP                                                        P                    EGRV                                                  >                0.52                                                                                0.2588              ,                                                                    P                    COMP                                                        P                    EGRV                                                  <                0.52
(ARED: equivalent cross-section, γ: specific heat ratio)
However, according to the equation, since the pressure difference (PCOMP/PEGRV) between the opposite sides of the EGR valve 20 is small, and parameters of the equation are associated with the two valves 10 and 20 and are associated with intake/exhaust flow in which pressure pulsation exists, control based on an equation θ=f(ARED) related to an opening angle (θ) of a generally-used valve and an equivalent cross-section (ARED) is difficult, as shown in FIG. 2.
The reason why the control based on the equation (θ=f(ARED)) is difficult is that an average pressure of the pressures (PCOMP, PEGRV) according to the amount of the air flow ({dot over (m)}AIR) is changeable, and a pulsation phase of the pressures (PCOMP, PEGRV) according to an engine speed (N) is changeable.
The information disclosed in this Background of the Invention 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.

Method for controlling exhaust gas recirculation system for engine


An apparatus for forming a regular stack of folding boxes wherein each box has unequal thicknesses at the end portions thereof. The apparatus has a conveyor belt for feeding the boxes and an upper and lower stacking station situated on two different planes. The boxes are fed from the conveyor belt only to the upper stacking station to form a partial stack thereon with light thickness ends in superposition. The partial stack from the upper stacking station by disposing a turntable from the lower stacking station vertically beneath the upper stacking station, providing displaceable floors in the upper stacking station to enable passage of a partial stack vertically downwardly to the turntable and mounting the turntable for rotation about a vertical axis to effect the stacking of successive partial stacks thereon with unlike thickness ends in superposition.

The invention relates to an apparatus for forming a regular stack of folding boxes of unequal thickness at the ends.
An apparatus of the kind described above is disclosed by German Offenlegungsschrift No. 2,437,475. Such stacking apparatus are desirable at the output of a folding and gluing machine, since certain kinds of folding boxes have edges of different thickness. For example, the end that is on the bottom may consist of a five-ply layer of cardboard, while the upper end of the folding box consists of only two layers of cardboard. When such folding boxes are stacked, a stack, after reaching a certain height, would fall over if the boxes were all to be stacked one on the other in the same orientation. German Offenlegungsschrift No. 2,437,475 sets forth an automatic stacking apparatus which forms a first stack at a lower-level stacking station, and then feeds the oncoming folding boxes over additional conveyor belts to a higher-level stacking station, and then the one stack is turned over and laid on the other by an inverting means. In this apparatus the first stack is swung upward on a circular path and inverted, and then lowered onto the second stack. In this turnover movement the stack has to be guided between guiding surfaces. If the box sizes are different, the adjustment of these guide surfaces is difficult. In the further employment of the stack in the case of the previously known apparatus, it is also disadvantageous that the boxes in the two partial stacks are not all face up or face down, because the one stack was inverted on the other.


An exploration technique allows a router to efficiently determine capabilities and configuration of a neighbor (peer) router. In addition, the technique enables peer routers of an adjacency to negotiate a capability “outside” of a protocol, such as a routing protocol, before a routing session is established between the routers. In this context, the term “outside” of the protocol denotes that there is no field within a protocol packet (message) implementation that can be used to negotiate the capability. Moreover, the inventive technique obviates the need to manually configure a router to support a particular capability and interoperate correctly within a network of routers that both support and are unaware of the capability.

A computer network is a geographically distributed collection of interconnected communication links and subnetworks (subnets) used to transport data between nodes, such as computers. Many types of computer networks are available, with the types ranging from local area networks (LANs) to wide area networks (WANs). The nodes typically communicate by exchanging discrete packets or messages of data according to pre-defined protocols, such as the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). In this context, a protocol consists of a set of rules defining how the nodes interact with each other. The TCP/IP architecture is well known and described in Computer Networks, 3rd Edition, by Andrew S. Tanenbaum, published by Prentice-Hall (1996).
Computer networks may be further interconnected by an intermediate node, such as a router, to extend the effective "size" of each network. Since management of a large system of interconnected computer networks can prove burdensome, smaller groups of computer networks may be maintained as autonomous systems or routing domains. The networks within a routing domain are typically coupled together by conventional "intra-domain" routers. Yet is still may be desirable to increase the number of nodes capable of exchanging data; in this case, interdomain routers executing interdomain routing protocols are used to interconnect nodes of the various autonomous systems.
An example of an interdomain routing protocol is the Border Gateway Protocol version 4 (BGP-4), which performs routing between autonomous systems by exchanging routing and reachability information among neighboring interdomain routers of the systems. The BGP-4 routing protocol is well known and described in detail in Request For Comments (RFC) 1771, by Y. Rekhter and T. Li (1995), Internet Draft <draft-ietf-idr-bgp4-20.txt> titled, A Border Gateway Protocol 4 (BGP-4) by Y. Rekhter and T. Li (April 2003) and Interconnections, Bridges and Routers, by R. Perlman, published by Addison Wesley Publishing Company, at pages 323-329 (1992), all disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
The interdomain routers configured to execute the BGP-4 protocol, referred to herein as BGP routers, perform various routing functions including transmission of routing messages. An adjacency is a relationship formed between selected neighboring (peer) routers for the purpose of exchanging routing messages and abstracting the Network topology. Before transmitting such messages, however, the BGP peers cooperate to establish a logical "peer" connection (session) between the routers. BGP-4 operates over a TCP connection, a reliable transport protocol. A TCP process executing on each peer router establishes the TCP connection in accordance with a conventional "3-way hand-shake" arrangement involving the exchange of TCP packet or segment data structures. The TCP protocol and establishment of a TCP connection are described in Computer Networks, 3rd Edition, particularly at pgs. 521-542, which is hereby incorporated by reference as though fully set forth herein.
FIG. 1 is a partial schematic block diagram of the format of a TCP segment 100. The TCP segment comprises a TCP header 110 that includes a source port field 112 containing a 16-bit source port number and a destination port field 114 containing a 16-bit destination port number. The source port number is used by a receiving peer router (i.e., a BGP receiver) to reply to a TCP segment 100 issued by a sending peer router (i.e., a BGP sender). A sequence number field 116 contains a sequence number of a first data byte in the segment and an acknowledgement number field 118 contains a value indicating the next sequence number that the receiver expects to receive. Note that the value contained in field 118 is valid only when an acknowledgement control bit (ACK 120) is asserted. In addition to the ACK bit 120, the TCP segment 110 includes other control bits, such as a synchronize bit (SYN 122) and a finish bit (FIN 124), the latter denoting the end of data transmitted from the sender. Termination (closing) of the TCP connection is done explicitly by sending a TCP segment with an asserted FIN bit 124.
To establish a TCP connection, the TCP processes on the peer routers must synchronize on each other's initial sequence numbers. This is done in an exchange of connection establishing segments carrying the SYN 122 control bit and the initial sequence numbers 116. Synchronization requires each peer router to send its own initial sequence number and to receive a confirmation (acknowledgement) from the other peer router according to the 3-way handshake arrangement. The resulting TCP connection is identified by the port numbers contained in fields 112,114 and IP addresses of the peer routers. The IP addresses are contained in an IP header of the segment.
FIG. 2 is a partial schematic diagram of the format of an IP header 200 comprising, inter alia, a source address field 220 containing the IP source address of the sending entity (e.g., the sending or initiating peer router) and a destination address field 230 containing the IP destination address of the receiving entity (e.g., the receiving peer router). In addition, the IP header 200 includes an 8-bit time-to-live (TTL) field 210 that contains a parameter indicating a maximum time the segment (or message) is allowed to remain in the network. For many routing protocols, including protocols that run over unreliable transports or implement reliable transports other than TCP, the TTL parameter is set to 1 in the routing message. This implies that the neighbor is on the same subnet and that there is only one "hop" distance between the peer routers.
BGP routers typically transmit BGP messages with a TTL of 1 for all directly connected peers. For all incoming BGP messages, the TTL can then be checked to ensure that it is 0. That is, if a BGP router is communicating with a routing peer and the TTL of the message is set to 1, the TTL should be 0 (or 1) when it gets to the router because the message should not have traversed more than one router to other subnets. Note that the TTL is not always set to one for BGP, as the adjacency can span multiple "hops" (for multi-hop BGP). In that latter case, the TTL is set at 2, 3 or whatever the multiple hop count.
One problem is that an attack may be launched against the BGP router from several hops away to, e.g., overload the router with more data than it can handle. Often an authentication process on the router performs authentication (such as MD5 or IP-SEC) operations to ensure that the data it receives from its peer is correct. In the case of the BGP routing process, the TCP process authenticates the TCP header of a message. However, these authentication operations require extra processing and, thus, consume router resources, such as a central processor unit (CPU).
While it does protect invalid data from being sent, such extra processing exposes the router to further attacks by, e.g., allowing an attacker to send "bogus" messages. The authentication process is forced to authenticate these messages and discard them when they fail authentication. Yet, if the attacker sends the router more information than it can handle, the attacker may achieve its desired effect of forcing the router to reboot. That is, the bogus data message overload forces the router to reboot so that the attacker can penetrate the router or just disrupt service. In addition, the router may perform filtering operations to make sure that the TTL of a routing protocol message is 1 or 0 (and not some other value). Such filtering allows that router to quickly discard bogus messages, as it is easier to examine the value of the TTL field than having to do an encryption-type of authentication operation on the message to determine whether it is bogus.
However, an attacker from outside the subnet can send messages that the router will accept by, e.g., setting the TTL to a value consistent with the number of hops away it is from the router. The TTL field is decremented by one at each router that forwards the message. When the message arrives on that subnet/link, it looks like it originated on that link. In other words, the message received at the router will have the same TTL (e.g., one) as every other message originated by routers on that link. Thus, if an attacker is able to determine how many hops away it is from the router, it can successfully launch an attack against the router. The attacker may also spoof the source address in the IP header of the message so that it looks as if the message originated on the destination local subnet.
A solution to this problem is to set the TTL parameter to a high value, e.g., 254, in accordance with a BGP TTL Security Hack (BTSH). BTSH is well known and described in detail in Internet Draft <draft-gill-btsh-02.txt> titled, The BGP TTL Security Hack (BTSH) by V. Gill et al. (May 2003), which is hereby incorporated by reference as though fully set forth herein. BTSH is designed to protect the BGP [RFC 1771] infrastructure from CPU-utilization based attacks and, to that end, provides a procedure for protecting BGP routers from the attackers. For example, in the case of directly connected routers, the BTSH procedure specifies setting the TCP TTL for the BGP connection to a value in the range of 255-254.
When a routing peer receives the routing message, it checks the TTL field to ensure that, instead of a value of 0 or 1, the TTL value is not less than 254. This ensures that the message originated on the same subnet as the router and hasn't been forwarded from another subnet. This is similar to sending a message with a TTL of 1 and making sure that it is 0 at the receiving peer. Here, the TTL is sent with a value of 255 and the routing peer ensures that the value is 254 when received.
It is generally accepted that it is more secure to use BTSH (and a TTL of 255) for transmitted BGP routing messages. Accordingly, it is desirable that incoming BGP messages received at a BGP router have a TTL of 254 for directly connected peers. Attacks on the BGP router would likely have originated on the link that connects the peers in order to have a TTL of 254. If an attacker attacks a router from outside the subnet, it is difficult (if not impossible) to direct messages to the router with a TTL value of 254 because the maximum value of the TTL parameter that can be set by the attacker is 255. When the message is forwarded with that value from outside the subnet, it will have a value less than 254 when arriving at the router.
Multi-hop BGP can use the same method described above by only accepting messages with a TTL of 253 or less, with the value of the TTL parameter corresponding to the number of hops between BGP peers. Therefore, the router can be configured to discard (not accept) a message because of the TTL value. This solution greatly restricts where attacks on a router can originate; for example, such an attack may need to be launched from a site local to the subnet/link, which is generally difficult to achieve because the attacker has to be geographically in the general area as the router.
A problem with this solution involves upgrading the routers to support BTSH.
One way to upgrade a router is by "manual" configuration using, e.g., a conventional configuration command. Not only does the router require such manual configuration, but the router's peer(s) must also be configured to support BTSH at the same time. In particular, router configuration to support BTSH for BGP sessions generally occurs on a per-peer basis. Configuring the BTSH option on potentially thousands of peering sessions is time consuming and increases the possibility of configuration mismatches that prevent establishment of peering sessions. It is also difficult to coordinate the upgrade at the same time on both routers that are peers. A technique is thus needed to automatically detect whether a peer supports and is using the BTSH option.
Another way to upgrade is through a capabilities exchange between peer routers.
For example once a TCP connection is established, BGP peer routers exchange messages to open and confirm various parameters associated with the connection. An initial message exchanged by the BGP routers is an OPEN message that opens a BGP communication session between the peers. After the OPEN messages are exchanged, KEEPALIVE messages are issued periodically by a BGP router to notify its peer router that it is "alive" and active. The OPEN message data structure is essentially a means for the routers to identify themselves at the beginning of the neighboring peer relationship. The formats and functions of the KEEPALIVE and OPEN messages are described in RFC 1771 and Internet Draft <draft-ietf-idr-bgp4-20.txt>.
In a typical capabilities exchange, a session must be established before any negotiation of capabilities ensues. For example since BGP runs over TCP, a TCP session has to be established before any routing protocol capabilities can be negotiated. It is generally difficult to negotiate a routing protocol capability, such as a TTL parameter, "within" the routing protocol after a session is established, because the session (procedure) has progressed too far. In this context, the term "within" a routing protocol denotes that there is a field ("behavior") within the routing protocol message (packet) implementation that can be used. A technique "outside" of a routing protocol is thus needed to enable efficient capabilities negotiation before the routing protocol peering session is initiated.

TTL exploration technique for determining capabilities and configuration of a peer router


A method for manufacturing an adhesive sheet according to the present invention is a method for manufacturing an adhesive sheet including a long peeling base material 1 and an adhesive layer 2 provided on the peeling base material 1 in the form of an island, the method including a peeling step of, after laminating a long adhesive layer 2 on the peeling base material 1, peeling off an unnecessary portion 6 of the adhesive layer 2 so that a predetermined portion of the adhesive layer is left on the peeling base material 1 in the form of an island, wherein, in the peeling step, the width W of a narrow portion 8, which is the narrowest in width in a short direction of the unnecessary portion 6 of the adhesive layer 2, is adjusted so that the breaking strength in the narrow portion 8 is 200 g or more.

Conventionally, a silver paste has been mainly used for bonding a semiconductor element and a supporting member for mounting a semiconductor element. However, along with recent miniaturization/enhancement of the performance of semiconductor elements, miniaturization/densification has also been demanded for supporting members to be used. In spite of such a demand, it is difficult for the silver paste to deal with the demand due to the occurrence of defects in wire-bonding which are attributable to side drop thereof or an incline of a semiconductor element, the difficulty in control of a film thickness of an adhesive layer made from the silver paste, the occurrence of voids in an adhesive layer, and the like.
In view of this, in order to deal with the demand, a film-shaped adhesive has been used in recent years. This film-shaped adhesive is used in a singulated-piece attaching method or a wafer-back-surface attaching method. In the case of producing a semiconductor device by the singulated-piece attaching method with the use of a film-shaped adhesive, initially, one cuts a film-shaped adhesive wound up in a roll form (a reel form) into a given size by cutting or punching, so as to obtain a singulated piece of the film-shaped adhesive. A supporting member with a film-shaped adhesive is obtained by attaching this singulated piece to a supporting member for mounting a semiconductor element. After that, one produces a supporting member with a semiconductor element by bonding (die-bonding) a semiconductor element singulated by a dicing step to the supporting member with a film-shaped adhesive. Further, through a wire-bonding step, a sealing step, and the like as needed, one produces a semiconductor device.
However, when using a film-shaped adhesive in the singulated-piece attaching method, a special assembling apparatus for cutting and bonding the film-shaped adhesive to a supporting member is necessary, and thus a problem is that a production cost is higher than a method using a silver paste.
On the other hand, in the case of producing a semiconductor device by the wafer-back-surface attaching method using a film-shaped adhesive, initially, one attaches the film-shaped adhesive to a surface (a back surface) of a semiconductor wafer which surface is opposite to a circuit surface of the semiconductor wafer, and further, one attaches a dicing tape to a surface of the film-shaped adhesive which is opposite to a semiconductor-wafer side of the film-shaped adhesive. Then, a semiconductor element with a film-shaped adhesive is obtained by singulating the semiconductor wafer and the film-shaped adhesive into individual pieces by dicing. One picks up the obtained semiconductor element with a film-shaped adhesive, and bonds (die-bonds) to a supporting member for mounting a semiconductor element. After that, through steps of heating, hardening, wire-bonding, and the like, one produces a semiconductor device.
This wafer-back-surface attaching method using a film-shaped adhesive does not require any special apparatus for singulating film-shaped adhesives, since one bonds a semiconductor element with a film-shaped adhesive to a supporting member, and it is possible to use a conventional assembling apparatus for a silver paste without any modification or with partial modification of the apparatus such as adding a heating platen. In view of this, attention is attracted as a method that can restrain a production cost relatively low, among assembly methods of a semiconductor device using a film-shaped adhesive.
However, in the above wafer-back-surface attaching method using a film-shaped adhesive, before performing the dicing of a semiconductor wafer, two attachment steps are required, i.e., a step of attaching a film-shaped adhesive to a semiconductor wafer and a step of attaching a dicing tape to the film-shaped adhesive. In view of this, in order to simplify this process, an adhesive sheet (a die-bond dicing sheet) made by attaching a film-shaped adhesive to a dicing tape so as to have both functions thereof with one piece has been developed (for example, see Patent Literature 1). Such an adhesive sheet has, for example, a three-layer structure of a peeling base material, an adhesive layer, and a self-adhesive film.
Further, a method in which one processes such an adhesive sheet in advance into a shape of a wafer to constitute a semiconductor element (so-called pre-cut processing) has been known (for example, see Patent Literature 2). The pre-cut processing is a method in which: one punches an adhesive layer along a shape of a wafer to be used; one peels the adhesive layer except for a part for attaching the wafer; one attaches a dicing tape thereto; subsequently, one punches the dicing tape along a shape of a frame (a wafer ring) for use in wafer fixation in a dicing step; and one removes an unnecessary portion.
The adhesive sheet subjected to the pre-cut processing has a structure as shown in FIG. 1(a), for example. Further, FIG. 1(b) is an X-X end view of a sectioned part of a die-bond dicing sheet 200 of FIG. 1(a) in which an adhesive layer 2 is laminated on a peeling base material 1, and a self-adhesive film 3 is further laminated thereon so that a peeling base material 1 side is a surface having viscosity. Note that the self-adhesive film 3 is laminated so as to cover the adhesive layer 2 and to have contact with the peeling base material 1 around the adhesive layer 2, thereby making it possible to fix the adhesive sheet 200 by attaching the self-adhesive film 3 to a wafer ring of an outer periphery of a semiconductor wafer when performing the dicing of the semiconductor wafer.
In the case of performing such pre-cut processing, the adhesive sheet is generally produced by pre-cut processing an adhesive layer along a wafer shape in a film-shaped adhesive, attaching the film-shaped adhesive to a dicing tape, and subsequently performing the pre-cut processing of the dicing tape along a wafer-ring shape, or alternatively, by attaching a dicing tape which is pre-cut processed in advance into a wafer-ring shape to a film-shaped adhesive which is pre-cut processed in advance.

Adhesive sheet and method for manufacturing adhesive sheets