A method of pumping a liquid with a tank truck, power is transferred from a diesel engine through a automatic transmission device to a triplex pump, wherein the triplex pump has a fluid provided to an inlet, an fluid outlet pressure and a fluid outlet flow rate, the diesel engine has a rotational speed, and the automatic transmission has an outlet rotational speed, and has multiple gear ratios is provided. The method comprising determining a delta P by comparing the fluid outlet pressure of the triplex pump to a predetermined pressure, determining a delta F by comparing the fluid outlet flow rate of the triplex pump to a predetermined flow rate, adjusting the rotational speed of the diesel engine to reduce the delta P and delta F, wherein the rotational speed of the diesel engine is held constant once either the delta P or the Delta F is approximately zero.

High purity nitrogen is normally obtained by cryogenic means. For small consumptions, the construction of a self-contained known production unit represents a prohibitive investment, in the case of automated installations, and a more limited investment but with high labor expenses in the opposite case which always represents a high cost for the nitrogen produced.
A more economical solution consists in utilizing a container for liquid nitrogen with large capacity, for example many tens of thousands of liters, from which liquid nitrogen is withdrawn and vaporized. As this is often an around the clock field operation, it is very demanding on the operator, who often must function as a repair man and field engineer as well. There is a need in the industry for a fully automated trailer truck mounted liquid nitrogen vaporizer, such as that proposed herein.


A data store and retrieval system is disclosed in which a pair of RAM buffer memories are coupled to a CCD page main memory to provide high-speed read/write access by a computer to the main memory. Each buffer memory has stored therein a page of data transferred from the CCD main memory. Compare means included in the system compares the page address requested by the computer with the page address stored in the buffer memories. If a comparison is found, the designated buffer memory is accessed for the requested data. Both read/write access is available under these conditions. If a no comparison is found, logic circuits located in the system using the requested page address transfer the page in which the requested address is located from the CCD main memory to the RAM buffer memories for access by the computer. If a write operation had occurred on a page stored in the buffer memories, the altered page is transferred back to the CCD main memory before a new page of data is transferred to the buffer memory other than the buffer memory in which the previous page address was found.

The present invention reltes to a data processing system and more particularly to a system for accessing serially-stored memories, especially charge-coupled memories. Charge-coupled devices (CCD) have been investigated for use in semiconductor memories, particularly those employed metal-oxide-silicon (MOS) technology in order to lower the cost of such memories as compared to dynamic random-access memories (RAM), magnetic disc and tape memories which are in present use. Present CCD memory technology has fabricated CCD memories having four times the density per package at 1/4 the cost per bit of a dynamic RAM memory. One disadvantage of CCD memories systems is their slower access time as compared to random-access memories employing MOS technology. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a serial memory system in which access time to the serial memory approaches those presently obtained with random-access memory systems. It is a further object of this invention to provide a CCD memory system which is relatively simple in structure and therefore low in cost.


A railcar shock absorber has neutral position in which the piston is spaced between buff and draft ends of the cylinder. An external spring is mounted to the shock absorber. A slider rod has one end mounted to the coupling to move relative to the frame of the railcar. The spring has retainers on each end, and the slider rod passes through the retainers. One of the retainers is stationary relative to the frame. The other retainer floats relative to the frame and will abut a neutral stop of the frame when the spring is in the maximum length position. An engagement member on the slider rod will further compress the spring if a draft shock occurs from the neutral position. If a buff shock occurs from the neutral position, the engagement member moves away from the floating retainer.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to railcar cushioning devices, in particular to a railcar cushioning device which is responsive from a neutral position to both buff and draft forces.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Railcars experience a great deal of shock during coupling operations and other train action which can damage cargo on the railcars and the railcars themselves. To absorb the high forces experienced by railcars during these operations, cushioning devices have been employed between the frame of the railcar and its coupler.
The shock experienced by railcars results from both buff and draft forces applied to the coupler of the railcar. The term "buff" is used to describe the movement experienced by a coupler when it is moved towards its associated railcar. These buff forces are usually experienced during coupling operations between the railcars. "Draft" describes the outward movement of the coupler away from its associated railcar in response to pulling forces acting on the coupler.
These cushioning devices are usually hydraulic piston and cylinder arrangements which absorb both buff and draft forces. The cylinders are filled with a hydraulic fluid which is forced through ports in the cylinder wall in response to the impact force applied to the piston. Characteristic of these cushioning devices, however, is the low level of impedance they provide in response to very low buff and draft forces. This response to very low buff and draft forces creates the undesirable effect of "slack" between the railcars.
There is a need therefore for a cushioning device for a railcar that operates at a very high impedance when subjected to low level forces to thereby reduce the effect of slack between the railcars while still providing an effective cushion for absorbing high levels of shock between the railcars.
In addition, prior art shock absorbers when not undergoing shock will restore the piston and shock absorber to an extended position. The restoration occurs due to gas pressure in the cylinder pushing the piston to the extended position. If a draft shock occurs while the piston is in the full extended position, the shock absorber will not be able to accommodate the draft shock because the railcar pocket stops mechanically prohibit further extension movement.

Railcar shock absorber with neutral position


The methyl and ethyl esters of trifluoroacetic acid or chlorodifluoroacetic acid can be prepared in a technically simple manner from the corresponding acid chlorides and methanol or ethanol, respectively, in the presence of an xe2x80x9coniumxe2x80x9d salt of the acid as a catalyst. The alcohol is used in a stoichiometric excess, namely the molar ratio of alcohol to acid chloride is selected such that operation is in the region of a two-phase reaction. One of the phases is formed by the desired ester product, which is obtained in a high purity without any distillation.

The invention relates to a method for the catalyzed reparation of methyl and ethyl esters of trifluoroacetic and chlorodifluoroacetic acid.
The methyl and/or ethyl esters of trifluoroacetic and/or chlorodifluoroacetic acid may be used as solvents or cleaning agents. For example, ethyl trifluoroacetate is a solvent in the chlorination of paraffin. The esters are also intermediate products in chemical synthesis. Methyl trifluoroacetate and 1,1,1-trifluoroethyl trifluoroacetate yield trifluoroethanol (and possibly methanol) after hydrogenation. Trifluoroethanol is a solvent and also an intermediate product for the preparation of isofluorane, an anaesthetic. The methyl and ethyl esters of chlorodifluoroacetic acid are likewise synthetic building blocks, for example for the production of liquid crystals.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,405,991 (=EP-A-0,623,582) discloses the preparation of esters of trifluoroacetic acid and of chlorodifluoroacetic acid from the acid chlorides and the corresponding alcohol in the presence of alkali metal or xe2x80x9coniumxe2x80x9d salts of the carboxylic acid corresponding to the carboxylic acid chloride used.
It is the object of the present invention to obtain substantially pure esters (degree of purity  greater than 94% by weight) in an even simpler manner.
This and other objects have been achieved in accordance with the present invention by providing a method for preparing a methyl or ethyl ester of trifluoroacetic acid or chlorodifluoroacetic acid, comprising reacting an acid chloride of trifluoroacetic acid or chlorodifluoroacetic acid with a stoichiometric excess of methyl or ethyl alcohol in the presence of an onium salt of the acid as a catalyst, the molar ratio of alcohol to acid chloride being selected such that two phases are formed, one phase being an ester phase which without a distillation step contains the ester in a purity of at least 95% by weight.
The invention is based on the observation that in the preparation of the methyl or ethyl esters of trifluoro-acetic acid or of chlorodifluoroacetic acid from the acid chlorides and the alcohol in the presence of xe2x80x9coniumxe2x80x9d salts of the relevant acids as catalyst, at certain molar ratios two phases form, namely such that in the two-phase region one phase always comprises the substantially pure ester.
The method according to the invention for the preparation of methyl or ethyl esters of trifluoroacetic acid and of chlorodifluoroacetic acid provides for the acid chloride to be reacted with an excess of the alcohol in the presence of an onium salt of the acid in question and for the molar ratio of alcohol to acid chloride to be selected such that two phases are formed, one phase containing the ester in a purity, achievable without a distillation stage, of at least 95% by weight. The ester can be isolated by separating the ester phase from the other phase. Using this procedure, the ester is thus produced in a purity which makes distillation unnecessary. One preferred embodiment of the method according to the invention therefore provides for the isolation of the resulting ester without distillation. The molar ratio of alcohol to acid chloride is advantageously in the range from 1.01:1 to 5:1.
When preparing the methyl ester of trifluoroacetic acid, the molar ratio of methanol to trifluoroacetyl chloride is in the range from 1.03:1 to 4:1. When preparing the ethyl ester of trifluoroacetic acid, the molar ratio of ethanol to trifluoroacetyl chloride is in the range from 1.01:1 to 5:1. When preparing the methyl ester of chlorodifluoroacetic acid, the molar ratio of methanol to chlorodifluoroacetyl chloride is in the range from 1.06:1 to 2.5:1. When preparing the ethyl ester of chlorodifluoroacetic acid, the molar ratio of ethanol to chlorodifluoroacetyl chloride is in the range from 1.02:1 to 2.5:1. In the above ranges, there are two phases in which, as stated, one phase comprises the ester, which is always contained in a purity of at least 95% by weight. The methyl esters always form the lower phase; the ethyl ester of chlorodifluoroacetic acid likewise forms the lower phase, and the ethyl ester of trifluoroacetic acid forms the upper phase.
As in the generic method, addition of an acid is not necessary, and is preferably not effected. Preferably the method is performed continuously.
As used herein, the term xe2x80x9coniumxe2x80x9d refers to cations having positively charged nitrogen, for example protonated aromatic nitrogen bases such as pyridinium or protonated alkyl-, dialkyl- or trialkylammonium cations having up to 20 carbon atoms, or for ammonium compounds substituted by cycloalkyl, or cycloaliphatic nitrogen bases such as piperidinium, or quaternary ammonium cations.
Highly suitable carboxylic acid salts. are xe2x80x9coniumxe2x80x9dsalts, xe2x80x9coniumxe2x80x9d standing for a cation of nitrogen of the formula Rxe2x80x2Rxe2x80x3Rxe2x80x2xe2x80x3Rxe2x80x3xe2x80x3N+, in which Rxe2x80x2, Rxe2x80x3, Rxe2x80x2xe2x80x3 and Rxe2x80x3xe2x80x3. independently of each other, stand for hydrogen, alkyl with 1 to 20 carbon atoms, aryl or aralkyl, or wherein Rxe2x80x2 and Rxe2x80x3 or wherein Rxe2x80x2xe2x80x3 and Rxe2x80x3xe2x80x3, or wherein Rxe2x80x2, Rxe2x80x3 and Rxe2x80x2xe2x80x3, or wherein Rxe2x80x2, Rxe2x80x3, Rxe2x80x2xe2x80x3 and Rxe2x80x3xe2x80x3, optionally with inclusion of the nitrogen atom, form saturated or unsaturated ring systems. xe2x80x9cArylxe2x80x9d here means in particular phenyl, or phenyl substituted by one or more C1-C2-alkyl groups. Salts in which xe2x80x9coniumxe2x80x9d stands for ammonium, pyridinium or R1xe2x80x2R2xe2x80x2R3xe2x80x2R4xe2x80x2N+, in which R1xe2x80x2, R2xe2x80x2, R3xe2x80x2 and R4xe2x80x2, independently of each other, are hydrogen, alkyl with 1 to 15 carbon atoms, phenyl or benzyl, are especially suitable. Examples of such cations include pyridinium, piperidinium, anilinium, benzyltriethylammonium and triethylammonium.
The temperature at which the reaction is performed is best from ambient temperature (about 20xc2x0 C.) up to the boiling point of the mixture, for example up to 100xc2x0 C. Operation is at ambient pressure (approximately 1 bar absolute) or if desired also at elevated pressure, for example at a pressure of up to 5 bar absolute.
The xe2x80x9coniumxe2x80x9d salt may be present in catalytic or molar quantities. Advantageously, the molar ratio of the acid halide to the carboxylic acid salt (onium salt) lies within the range from 1:1 to 20:1, but it is possible also to operate outside this range. Surprisingly, the presence of the onium salt results in a greater purity of the ester phase. The optimum quantity of onium salt for achieving a desired purity can be readily determined by orienting tests, simply by analyzing the ester phase in each case, e.g. by a gas chromatogram.
According to one particular embodiment of the invention, the acid chloride and the xe2x80x9coniumxe2x80x9d salt of the carboxylic acid are produced in situ. To this end, the corresponding xe2x80x9coniumxe2x80x9d chloride is reacted with the anhydride of the carboxylic acid to be used. During this reaction, the corresponding acid halide and the corresponding salt are formed from the anhydride of the carboxylic acid. With this embodiment, spent halide catalysts can be used as alkali metal or xe2x80x9coniumxe2x80x9d halide, and in this manner can be converted into valuable products. Preferably pyridinium salts are used.
The invention has the advantage that it is possible to produce carboxylic acid esters without hydrolytic working-up in a technically particularly simple, energy-saving manner.
The invention will be explained in greater detail with reference to the following examples, without being restricted in its scope.
Preparation of Trifluoroacetic Acid Alkyl Esters

Two phase preparation of carboxylic acid esters


A token receiving and categorizing system and method which identifies tokens as a particular one of several acceptable tokens or as an unacceptable token includes the performance of a series of measurements of chord lengths on a token and selecting the largest of those chord length measurements for comparison with each of a plurality of stored disjoint token diameter ranges. An indication of a particular acceptable token denomination is recorded only if the largest chord length measurement is within a stored token diameter range corresponding to that denomination. The chord length measurements are performed by causing the token to fall between a light source and a linear light sensing array with the source casting a shadow of the token onto the array. The first location within the array at which a transition from light to shadow occurs, as well as the last location within the array at which a transition from shadow to light occurs, are identified with the difference between those two locations forming an indication of chord lengths. A chord length measurement may be repeated, for example from 40 to 80 times during the passage of a token. The monetary amount of each token deposited, if applicable, may be displayed as well as an accumulated total for a sequence of tokens on either a short term or long term basis. Various electromechanical devices may be coupled to the system in a manner to prevent transient current generation from those devices interfering with the system operation.

The present invention relates generally to the receiving of tokens and more particularly to the receiving and categorizing of those tokens as particular acceptable types or as being unacceptable according to their optically sensed size. The system has particular utility in public transportation systems, for example at a passenger entrance location where that passenger is required to deposit a fee in the form of one or more coins or a transit authority token.
The conventional fare box frequently encountered in mass transit systems includes a coin chute into which a passenger places a transit authority token or other tokens such as coins of varying monetary value with these tokens coming to rest on a flat plate where they may be inspected by a transit authority employee, such as the driver of a bus, streetcar or the like. Once the operator has confirmed that the appropriate fare has been deposited, he actuates a lever to dump the tokens from the inspection plate into an accumulating vault in the fare box pedestal preparatory to receiving further fares from the passengers.
Fare boxes of the foregoing type have long been in use and numerous modifications and improvements thereon have from time to time appeared. One such improvement is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,939,954 wherein deposited tokens are arranged serially or in single file to pass an optical sensing arrangement for determining the token diameter. One token edge is urged into engagement with a reference surface while the opposite token edge obscures certain light sensors while allowing light to pass from certain light sources to other of the light sensors with the particular sensors obscured or unobscured providing a measure of the position of the one coin edge relative to the reference surface. The accuracy of such an arrangement is highly dependent upon the coin or token being in engagement with the reference surface. The optical sensing arrangement which is typically an array of light emitting diodes and corresponding photo transistors provides only an indication of the lateral extent of one token edge which indication is presumed to be relative to the reference surface, with the other token edge engaging that surface.
Another variation on the classic fare box is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,918,565, wherein a property of the token material, such as a frequency shift due to a magnetic property thereof, is measured as the token is deposited. This measurement provides a single token parameter or a sequence of single token parameters indicative of a token material characteristic, such as its permeability or reluctance. After an analog to digital conversion, the token test result or results are compared to preset results and a decision on the validity and type of token is made. This system has no provision for size discrimination between tokens but rather relies on the token material characteristics. The system is further rather costly and requires frequent and careful maintenance, relying as it does on frequency or phase shift measurements and suffering from all of the problems associated with such measurements.


A circuit arrangement, having a plurality of electronic components; a plurality of first access lines and second access lines, wherein each electronic component is coupled with at least one first access line and at least one second access line; an access controller configured to control an access to at least one electronic component of the plurality of electronic components via the at least one first access line and the at least one second access line; a bias circuit configured to provide a defined potential to at least one of the first access lines, wherein the bias circuit is configured, during an access to an electronic component via one selected first access line of the plurality of first access lines, to provide the defined potential to one or two first access lines of the plurality of first access lines, wherein the one or two first access lines are arranged adjacent to the selected first access line, and, wherein during the access to the electronic component, the potentials of the first access lines of the plurality of first access lines other than the selected first access line and the one or two first access lines arranged adjacent to the selected first access line are floating.

Flash memories typically require a high voltage for modifying data. High-voltage devices that can withstand the high voltages are used in such memories. For example, a multiplexer circuit used for selecting a memory cell to be connected to a sense amplifier or to a write buffer circuit requires high-voltage devices. If the sense amplifier is designed for lower voltages, it may need a protection device. The high-voltage is generally generated by a charge pump and leakage current of the multiplexer circuit needs to be minimized.
High-voltage devices generally have thicker gate oxides and larger channel widths and channel lengths than low-voltage devices so that they can withstand the higher electric fields caused by the high voltages. As a result, high voltage devices have high threshold voltages and large device areas. The layout and the circuit architecture are therefore optimized to minimize the required area. On the other hand, low voltage devices show improved analog characteristics, and due to thinner gate oxide better matching characteristics, which is important for building analog circuits, such as the sense amplifier. Therefore, the combination of high voltage and low voltage devices is essential for the combination of protection and accurate read operation. Because of the poor properties of p-channel devices, n-channel devices are predominantly used.
During a read operation, a memory cell is selected by means of a first access line, for example a bit line, and a second access line, for example a word line. First access lines of memory cells that are not used for selecting and accessing the memory cell are usually kept at a defined bias, for example, by being connected to a defined potential, such as the ground potential. As a result, the read operation of the selected memory cell will not be disturbed by capacitive coupling with adjacent first access lines. Usually, n-channel devices are used for biasing the adjacent first access lines.
Because the devices in the multiplexer circuit and the discharge devices have the same polarity, an additional bus with an inverted signal has to be routed. The bus needs to be designed for high-voltages because the bit line is biased to voltages larger than the break down voltage of the low voltage devices during write or erase operations. However, a high-voltage design requires a high voltage level shifter for the control of the gates which requires area and consumes dynamic power during operation provided by the charge pumps. Typically, charge pumps draw a large current on the supply line VDD. The use of p-channel devices for biasing is possible, however, a negative overdrive is required or the first access lines that are not used for selecting the memory cell are only weakly biased. This situation arises especially in scaled technology nodes where the supply voltage VDD is in the range of the threshold voltage of the high voltage devices.

Circuit arrangement and method for operating a circuit arrangement


A new and improved fletch replacement device with a securement portion having an adhesive surface thereon. The adhesive surface is adapted to be coupled with an upper end of a shaft of the arrow. The securement portion has a plurality of slots integral therewith. The plurality of slots have a gap of about 1/4 of an inch therebetween. A fletch portion has a flange integral therewith. The flange is slidably coupled with the plurality of slots of the securement portion.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fletch replacement device and more particularly pertains to changing or replacing fletches on arrows quickly and easily with a fletch replacement device.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of fletching devices is known in the prior art. More specifically, fletching devices heretofore devised and utilized for the purpose of supporting a fletch on an arrow are known to consist basically of familiar, expected and obvious structural configurations, notwithstanding the myriad of designs encompassed by the crowded prior art which have been developed for the fulfillment of countless objectives and requirements.
By way of example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,211,382 to Finlay discloses an arrow fletcher.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,061,008 to Saunders discloses a fixture for arrow nock and fletching orientation.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,392,654 to Carella discloses arrow fletching.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,138,113 to Sheldon, Jr. discloses a dart fletching assembly.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,815,916 to Meszaros discloses a fletching unit for arrow.
While these devices fulfill their respective, particular objective and requirements, the aforementioned patents do not describe a fletch replacement device for changing or replacing fletches on arrows quickly and easily.
In this respect, the fletch replacement device according to the present invention substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in doing so provides an apparatus primarily developed for the purpose of changing or replacing fletches on arrows quickly and easily.
Therefore, it can be appreciated that there exists a continuing need for a new and improved fletch replacement device which can be used for changing or replacing fletches on arrows quickly and easily. In this regard, the present invention substantially fulfills this need.


A workout apparatus for use by a user to simulate core movement patterns of bike riding is provided. The workout apparatus includes a base deck, a pair of tubular members coupled to the base deck and in contact with the ground, each tubular member having a convex surface in contact with the ground surface, a frame assembly pivotably mounted to the base deck, a handle bar coupled to the frame assembly, and a pair of hydraulic damper units coupled to the frame assembly and base deck. The user on the base deck grabs the handle bar to perform a pushing or pulling motion, thereby enabling the first hydraulic damper unit or second hydraulic damper unit to provide resistance to movement of the frame assembly.

The embodiments herein relate generally to bicycle-related sports including, but not limited to, BMX, mountain biking, road cycling, cyclocross and motocross.
BMX, mountain bike and motocross athletes do not have a training device that precisely mimics, practices and/or simulates the movement patterns of their bikes' handlebars relative to the pedals or foot pegs. Currently, athletes train by riding their bicycles or motorcycles in the field and by performing strength exercises that do not exactly re-create the movement patterns of these sports during competitions.
As such, there is a need in the industry for a workout apparatus for simulating user movement patterns in these bicycle sports, which overcomes the limitations of the prior art. There is a further need for the workout apparatus to permit the user to perform a variety of exercise movements to improve general strength and fitness, including standing row movements with resistance in both the pulling and pushing directions.

Workout apparatus for simulating user movement patterns in bicycle sports


Method of forming multi-gate finFETs with epitaxially-grown merged source/drains. Embodiments of the invention may include forming a plurality of semiconductor fins joined by a plurality of inter-fin semiconductor regions, depositing a sacrificial gate over a center portion of each of the plurality of fins, forming a first merge layer over a first end of each of the plurality of fins to form a first merged fin region, forming a second merge layer over the second end of each of the plurality of fins to form a second merged fin region, etching a portion of the first merged fin region to form a first source/drain base region, etching a portion of the second merged fin region to form a second source/drain base region, forming a first source/drain region on the first source/drain base region, and forming a second source/drain region on the second source/drain base region.

The present invention generally relates to semiconductor devices, and particularly to the manufacture of epitaxially-grown source/drains of multi-fin finFETs.
Fin metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistor (Fin-MOSFET) is an emerging technology which provides solutions to metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) scaling problems at, and below, the 22 nm node. FinMOSFET structures include fin field effect transistors (finFETs) which include at least one narrow semiconductor fin gated on at least two opposing sides of each of the at least one semiconductor fin. FinFET structures may be formed on a semiconductor-on-insulator (SOI) substrate, because of the low source/drain diffusion, low substrate capacitance, and ease of electrical isolation by shallow trench isolation structures.
FinFET devices having multiple fins covered by a single gate (also known as multigate devices) have been developed to further maximize the surface area contact between the body region of the fins and the gate. The multiple fins of multigate devices may be merged on one end to form a single source/drain region. Merging the multiple fins may be accomplished by epitaxially grown source/drain material, such as silicon, on the fin surface. However, as semiconductor devices continue to decrease in size, the smaller spaces between the fins may lead to issues such as faceting when growing source/drain regions of multigate devices. Due to the nature of epitaxial growth and certain structural features of integrated circuit devices, faceting is the result of epitaxially grown regions exhibiting undesirably formed shapes that impact device performance and reliability. In the case of forming source/drain regions on SOI finFETs, epitaxial growth occurs primarily on the fin sidewalls. Sidewall growth can result in faceting, voids, and other defects where growths on opposing sidewalls meet. Therefore, a method of growing source/drain regions of multigate devices that may, among other things, avoid faceting is desirable.

Multigate finFETs with epitaxially-grown merged source/drains

International Business Machines Corporation


A backlight unit including a light guide plate (LGP), a light source module disposed adjacent to an incident surface of the LGP and configured to irradiate light to the incident surface, and a light control member disposed between the light source module and the incident surface, in which the light control member includes a reflection preventing layer disposed adjacent to the light source module and configured to prevent reflection of light, a base substrate disposed on the reflection preventing layer and configured to scatter or diffuse light transmitted through the reflection preventing layer, and a light adjusting filter disposed on the base substrate and configured to filter light including a first wavelength among light provided by the light source module.

Field
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to a backlight unit and a liquid crystal display (LCD) including the same.
Discussion of the Background
Conventional displays are being replaced by thin flat panel displays such as liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs).
An LCD may include a liquid crystal panel having liquid crystals injected between a thin-film transistor (TFT) substrate and a color filter substrate. Since the LCD may not emit light by itself, a backlight unit for supplying light may be located behind the TFT substrate. Transmittance of light emitted from the backlight unit may be adjusted by the arrangement of the liquid crystals.
Backlight units may be classified into direct-illumination type and edge-illumination type according to the position of a light source. In an edge-illumination type backlight unit, a light source may be disposed on a side of a light guide plate (LGP). The edge-illumination type backlight unit may be used for relatively small-sized LCDs, such as laptop computers and notebook computers. The edge-illumination type backlight unit may provide uniform light, have a long useful life, and be advantageous for making LCDs thinner.
When a light-emitting diode (LED) (i.e., a point light source) is used as the light source of the edge-illumination type backlight unit, a hot spot (i.e., a bright portion) may be created on a portion of a liquid crystal panel due to characteristics of the point light source. In particular, the hot spot may occur when light emitted from the light source forms a bright portion on the liquid crystal panel, and an area around the bright portion may appear dark (a dark portion). The bright or dark portions of the hot spot may degrade the quality of a display device.
In addition, while the LED is placed on a side of the LGP to emit light toward the LGP, part of the emitted light may leak, that is, may fail to enter the LGP.
In particular, when an LED emitting white light is used as the light source, a hot spot may be created on the liquid crystal panel, and the hot spot may make the luminance of the LCD non-uniform.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the inventive concept, and, therefore, it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.

Backlight unit and liquid crystal display including the same


A centering clamping apparatus has a housing (1) with a centering element (2) mounted to be displaceable along a longitudinal axis between an open position and a clamping position. A finger element (3), mounted with centering element (2), is displaceable transversely to the longitudinal axis between a retracted position and an extended position. The finger element (3) is operatively connected to an adjusting member (4). The adjusting element (4) is mounted to be displaceable in the centering element (2). A blocking device (5) is provided on the centering element (2). The blocking device (5) either precludes a relative movement between the housing (1) and the centering element (2), with the finger element (3) fully retracted, or precludes a relative movement between the centering element (2) and the adjusting member (4), with the finger element (3) fully extended.

A centering clamping apparatus of the aforementioned type is known from the as yet unpublished U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/538,990. This centering clamping apparatus consists of a housing and a centering element mounted to be displaceable along a longitudinal axis between an open position and a clamping position. A finger element, mounted on the centering element, is displaceable transversely to the longitudinal axis between a retracted position and an extended position. The finger element is operatively connected with an adjusting member displaceably mounted in the centering element. Within the framework of the disclosure, the finger element is always provided with at least one finger element and two finger elements are actually provided in the above described solution.


Surge protection modules and switch bases separately provided from the surge protection modules facilitate plug-in installation and removal of the surge protection modules as well as disconnect switching capability to facilitate maintenance and service events in an electrical power system without de-energizing circuitry connected to the switch bases.

The field of the invention relates generally to electrical circuit protection devices, and more specifically to voltage surge protection devices and systems for electrical panelboards.
Various different types of circuit protectors exist to meet the needs of electrical power systems providing electrical power to various loads. Among these, surge suppression devices (SPDs) have been developed in response to the need to protect an ever-expanding number of circuits, and particularly electronic devices connected to those circuits from over-voltage conditions in line-side circuitry that may result, for example, from static discharge or lightning strikes. Over-voltage surges can damage or destroy unprotected consumer electronics or sophisticated electronic packages used in industrial and commercial applications. Indeed, it is not uncommon for electronic devices to include internal SPDs or surge protection features designed to protect the device from certain overvoltage conditions or surges, and also for line-side circuitry powering the electronic device in an electrical power distribution system to include SPDs. Examples of electrical equipment which typically utilize SPD devices include but are not limited to telecommunications system, computer systems and control systems.
In use, SPDs normally exhibit a high impedance, but when an over-voltage event occurs, the devices switch to a low impendence state so as to shunt or divert overvoltage-induced current to electrical ground. Damaging currents are therefore diverted from flowing to load-side circuitry, thereby protecting the corresponding equipment, loads and electronic devices from damage.
When SPDs are utilized in electrical panelboards, certain problems are presented, and improvements are desired.

Surge protector switch disconnect modules and devices


A method for controlling air-fuel ratio of an engine coupled to an emission control device uses an upstream linear exhaust gas sensor and a switching downstream exhaust gas sensor. During stoichiometric operation, both sensors are used for feedback control. During operation away from stoichiometry, the downstream sensor feedback is disabled.

The present invention relates to a combined lean burn and stoichiometric fuel control for an automotive internal combustion engine.
Engine air-fuel ratio control typically uses an exhaust gas oxygen sensor for feedback control. One system shows a xe2x80x9clinearxe2x80x9d exhaust gas sensor upstream of catalyst and a xe2x80x9cswitchingxe2x80x9d exhaust gas sensor downstream of the catalyst. In this system, the xe2x80x9cswitchingxe2x80x9d sensor is used to monitor the catalyst and the xe2x80x9clinearxe2x80x9d sensor. Further, the xe2x80x9cswitchingxe2x80x9d sensor is used for air-fuel control during engine start until the xe2x80x9clinearxe2x80x9d sensor reaches its operating temperature. However, whenever the xe2x80x9clinearxe2x80x9d sensor attains the activation temperature, it is utilized to control engine air-fuel ratio. Such a method is described U.S. Pat. No. 5,832,724.
The inventors herein have recognized a disadvantage of the above approach. In particular, the xe2x80x9clinearxe2x80x9d sensor has less accuracy in determining the point of stoichiometry than the xe2x80x9cswitchingxe2x80x9d sensor. This is generally because the xe2x80x9clinearxe2x80x9d sensor is designed to provide a signal indicative of actual air-fuel ratio over a wide air-fuel ratio range, whereas the xe2x80x9cswitchingxe2x80x9d sensor is designed to produce a very large change (xe2x80x9cswitchxe2x80x9d) at the point of stoichiometry. Thus, when operating near stoichiometry, such a system provides degraded performance.
Disadvantages of prior approaches are overcome by a system for controlling engine air-fuel ratio entering an emission control device comprising: a switching exhaust gas sensor located downstream of the emission control device; a linear exhaust gas sensor located upstream of the emission control device; and a controller adjusting a fuel injection amount into the engine based on both said switching exhaust gas sensor and said linear exhaust gas sensor when operating near stoichiometry; and adjusting said fuel injection amount into the engine based on said linear exhaust gas sensor and independent of said switching exhaust gas sensor when operating away from stoichiometry.
By utilizing both the switching sensor and linear sensor when operating near stoichiometry, it is possible to improve the accuracy of the air-fuel ratio control system. Further, with the same system, it is possible to retain a linear sensor to provide accurate air-fuel ratio control away from stoichiometry.
An advantage of the above aspect of the present invention is improved emissions and improved fuel economy.


Embodiments of the present invention disclose a thin film transistor and a manufacturing method thereof, an array substrate, and a display device, which relates to the field of display technology, and solves the problem that the adhesion of the electrode thin film with the adjacent thin film layer in the thin film transistor of the prior art is relatively bad. More specifically, an embodiment of the present invention provides a thin film transistor, comprising a gate, a source, a drain and a buffer layer, the buffer layer is located at one side or two sides of the gate, the source or the drain, the material of the buffer layer is a copper alloy material, the copper alloy material contains nitrogen element or oxygen element, the copper alloy material further contains aluminum element.

The thin film transistor (TFT) is a key component in a liquid crystal display device, and plays very important function to working performance of the display device. The liquid crystal display device for example may comprise a liquid crystal display, and each liquid crystal pixel point on the liquid crystal display is driven by a TFT integrated behind it, so that the liquid crystal display can display screen information at a high speed, high brightness and high contrast.
In recent years, a copper thin film of low resistance has begun to be used on a semiconductor integrated circuit, electrodes and wirings of a thin film transistor. Since the resistance of copper is relatively low, it can increase communication speed of a digital signal and reduce power consumption. However, in the thin film transistor, the adhesion between an electrode thin film and an adjacent thin film layer is relatively bad, particularly the copper electrode thin film. In addition, atoms in the electrode thin film may diffuse into the thin film layer in contact with it, and influence the property of the adjacent thin film layer. For example: the adhesion between a source or drain containing copper and an active layer is relatively bad, and copper atoms in the source or drain containing copper may also diffuse into the active layer and influence the property of the active layer.
To sum up, in the thin film transistor of the prior art, the adhesion between the electrode thin film and the adjacent thin film layer is relatively bad, and the electrode thin film may also influence the property of the adjacent thin film layer.

Thin film transistor and manufacturing method thereof, array substrate, display device


A crimp height adjustment mechanism is disclosed for use in a crimping machine having an anvil and a ram carrying a crimping die. The ram is secured against rotation and guided for reciprocal movement along a ram axis for moving the crimping die toward and away from the anvil. A drive member is connected for reciprocating the ram. The adjustment mechanism includes a first member fixed with respect to the anvil and having a first threaded portion of a first thread pitch extending along an adjustment axis parallel to the ram axis. A second member has a second threaded portion coaxial to the first threaded portion. The second threaded portion has a second thread pitch which differs from the first thread pitch. The second member is secured against rotation and coupled to move the ram linearly along the ram axis. A third member has both a third threaded portion which is threadedly engaged with the first threaded portion, and a fourth threaded portion which is threadedly engaged with the second threaded portion. The third member is rotatable about the adjustment axis so as to change an extent of engagement with the first and second threaded portions. Rotation of the third member about the adjustment axis produces a linear movement of the second member which is equal to a number of rotations of the third member multiplied by a difference between the first and second pitches.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a machine for crimping a terminal to an electrical conductor, and more particularly, to a mechanism which enables extremely fine adjustment of the height of a crimped terminal produced in such a machine.
2. Prior Art
Machines are known for crimping a terminal to an electrical conductor such as a wire or cable. Such machines generally employ a ram which is reciprocally movable with respect to a fixed anvil. The ram carries a crimping die which cooperates with the anvil to crimp a terminal therebetween. In a crimping operation, the ram is driven through a working stroke to deform the terminal and tightly engage the conductor within the terminal to form a crimped connection.
The crimp height, i.e., the height or vertical dimension of the terminal after deformation, is a good indicator of quality of the crimped connection. In order to produce a secure and reliable crimped connection, the terminal must be deformed around the conductor until the height of the terminal is below a certain maximum. Terminals and conductors come in a variety of types and sizes, and the maximum is predetermined for many different combinations of terminals and conductors. Based on pullout tests which measure the tension required to separate crimped terminals of various crimp heights from their associated conductors, the maximum crimp height for a particular combination of terminal and conductor can be calculated. Ideal crimp heights are somewhat below the maximum so as to provide a safety factor against pullout while avoiding excessive deformation of the terminal which may in itself destroy the crimped connection and requires greater energy to produce.
A crimping machine which has been set up to produce a certain crimp height may require adjustment after some time in operation. The need for adjustment may be due to wear of components in the machine, non-uniformity of terminals being crimped, or a change in the type or size of the terminal or conductor. Various mechanisms for adjusting crimp height are known. These mechanisms provide either a means to vary the working stroke of the ram or a means to adjust a rest position of the ram with respect to the anvil, thereby adjusting a dimension from the crimping die to the anvil when the ram is at the fullest extent of its working stroke. The known adjustment mechanisms are somewhat coarse, generally being unable to achieve crimp height adjustments in increments smaller than 0.001 inch.
There is a need for a mechanism that provides extremely fine crimp height adjustments and that is easy to set to a desired value.


A method and apparatus for deriving information from a textual representation of a sentence are provided, the sentence having a plurality of words. The apparatus comprises an input, a processing unit and an output. The input is for receiving data elements indicative of the textual representation of the sentence. The processing unit is operative for processing the textual representation of the sentence to derive an information record on the basis of a set of information extraction rules, the information record being indicative of a semantic representation of at least part of the sentence. The information record is then released at the output. A computer readable medium comprising a program element suitable for execution by a computing apparatus for deriving information from a textual representation of a sentence is also provided.

Computers allow the storage and retrieval of an increasing amount of information. This information is in turn made available to users through local computer networks as well as global computer networks such as the Internet. This information is generally in the form of narrative texts. As the amount of information available increases, so does the difficulty in locating, extracting and making sense of relevant information. Additionally, the information contained in narrative texts is not organized in a form that can be easily processed and manipulated by a computing apparatus to extract desired information.
Natural language information extraction systems are used to extract information from written texts such as to facilitate its processing by a computing apparatus. Commonly, the process of natural language understanding can be divided in three distinct sub-processes namely morphological analysis, syntactic processing and semantic analysis.
The role of semantic analysis is to generate a logical form that describes the meaning of a sentence rather than just the syntactical link between words.
Morphological analysis is the process of assigning to each word the most likely part-of-speech (pos) or morphological tag. Words can have different forms (for example: "work", "works", "working", "worked" are different forms of the word "work") and can have different roles (for example: "work" can be a noun as in "difficult work", or a verb as in "I work hard"). Those roles are commonly referred to as part-of-speech (pos) or morphological tags. Morphological analysis can be divided into two separate stages namely morphological tagging and morphological disambiguation. Morphological tagging is the process of determining the set of possible morphological tags for a word. Morphological tagging is relatively well understood in the art. Morphological disambiguation is the process of determining the actual or most likely morphological tag of a word in a sentence.
There are two well-known classes of methods for morphological disambiguation: probabilistic and rule-based. Probabilistic methods make use of statistical measurements derived from a plurality of training sentences. Probabilistic methods generally make use of training sentences that are tagged by hand. Using well-known statistical methods, a general disambiguation process is obtained by training a computer program on these hand tagged training sentences. This method is described in Elworthy, D., "Part-of-speech tagging and phrasal tagging", Technical report, University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, Cambridge, England, 1993 whose contents are hereby incorporated by reference. In addition to the costs of manually tagging the training sentences, the performance of probabilistic methods highly depends upon the training sentences used to derive the statistical measurements. Rule-based methods use linguistic rules written by people. In Voutilainen, Atro, "Morphological disambiguation" 1995, whose content is hereby incorporated by reference, examples of rule based methods are described. These linguistic rules examine the context in which a word appears and either assign a definite morphological tag or remove an unlikely possibility from the set of possible morphological tags. A deficiency in known rule-based approaches is that they make use of general linguistic rules that fail to address particular cases leading many ambiguities to be left unresolved.
Syntactic processing uses the information provided by the morphological analysis and attempts to identify the relationships between words (ex: subject, object, complement etc.). There are two common methods for representing the syntax of a sentence: constituency and dependency.
The overwhelming majority of parsers use constituency syntax. In constituency syntax, a sentence is depicted as a tree where each node is labeled with the type of constituent (ex: noun phrase, verb phrase, etc.) and the leaves store the individual words of the sentence. The tree itself is ordered and arcs on the tree are not labeled.
A few parsers use dependency syntax where a sentence is depicted as a tree where all nodes and leaves are associated to words in a sentence and arcs in the tree are associated to data elements indicative of relationships between words (ex: subject, object, etc.). Dependency syntax is described in Tesnière, Lucien, "Élèments de syntaxe structurale", Éditions Klincksieck, Paris, 1959; Mel'cuk, Igor A., "Dependency Syntax: Theory and Practice", State University of New York Press, Albany, 1987. The contents of these documents is hereby incorporated by reference.
A deficiency in prior art syntactic processors is that they do not provide practical domain-independent parsing capabilities. More specifically, to provide a suitable level of performance, syntactic analysis should work on complete sentences. However, complex sentences are often very long and contain various punctuation and symbols. Prior art parsers often have difficulty returning a complete parse on sentences beyond a certain level of complexity and for this reason have a poor performance when parsing complex texts such as those found in newspapers, journals and the likes.
Another deficiency in prior art syntactical processors is that they provide no practical way of deferring syntactical disambiguation to a later stage of analysis while preserving a plurality of syntactical possibilities. For example, different constituents and words can be attached at different places (ex: "receive a flu shot in a leg" compared to "receive a flu shot in a clinic"). Prior art syntactic processors attempt this disambiguation on syntactic basis alone or combined with simplified semantic tagging and only provide correct results in a low percentage of cases.
Thus, there exists a need in the industry to refine the process of natural language understanding so as to obtain an improved natural language information extraction system.

Method and apparatus for deriving information from written text


A receptacle with compartmented peripheral walls for displaying personalized and changeable graphics is disclosed. The receptacle has an inner cylinder and a transparent outer cylinder which are spaced apart by vertical spacers which divide the cavity between the cylinders into compartments, each of which houses a removable sheet of graphic material. In a preferred embodiment, each compartment is sized to hold a standard, stock sized paper, such as 8½″×11″, so the graphics may be quickly and easily changed.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to receptacles, especially those typically used as wastebaskets in a domestic or office environment. More particularly, the invention comprises a receptacle having a transparent peripheral wall which is compartmented to receive a plurality of sheets of standard paper sizes, which may bear personalized graphics or text.
2. Description of the Prior Art
People have always been interested in personalizing their surroundings to display their individuality. Over the years a number of different items, many of them various types of receptacles which may be personalized by the inclusion of personal graphic or textual matter, have been developed.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,894,948, issued to Frank Yeh on Apr. 20, 1999, presents a Novelty Mug Assembly having an inner mug and a transparent outer mug. Either a flat sheet formed into a cylinder or a preformed cylinder may be fitted between the inner mug and outer mug, the cylinder either having a graphic or textual design already thereon or being customizable by the user. Once the cylinder is placed within the outer mug, the inner mug is removably inserted, with a seal device placed therebetween. The cylinder may be replaced at the users discretion. By contrast, the periphery of the present invention is compartmentalized to receive a plurality of decorative sheets.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,562,229, issued to Edward Callahan on Oct. 8, 1996, a DECORATIVE RECEPTACLE WITH REMOVABLE COVER is disclosed. An inner receptacle body has flanges at its upper and lower end which releasably hold an outer, tubular sidewall member in place. A base member is held in place by a plurality of pins which engage corresponding holes in the bottom of the tubular sidewall member. The tubular sidewall member may thereby be removed for cleaning or replacement with another sidewall member having the same or a different graphic design thereon. While Callahan provides a changeable, decorative cover for a receptacle, no provision is made for separately housing sheets of decorative material, as does the present invention.
Fumiyo Kimura discloses a VESSEL WITH DISPLAY FUNCTION in his U.S. Pat. No. 5,553,735, issued on Sep. 10, 1996. Kimura presents two distinct embodiments of his vessel. In a first embodiment an inner and an outer shell with a gap therebetween is formed as a single unit, closed at the top and sealed with a base unit. In several different versions of the second embodiment, an inner shell is inserted into an outer shell, the two elements being removably joined around the periphery of the upper edges. A cavity between the inner and outer shells may receive interchangeable graphic or textual displays. While Kimura provides for changing displays within the vessel, the separate and distinct chambers of the present invention are absent
U.S. Pat. No. 5,553,733, issued to Linda M. Rosenthal on Sep. 10, 1996, sets forth an ARTICLE COVER. A rigid base element has a pliable peripheral wall attached around its perimeter, the wall being extendable to cover the exterior of an article placed therewithin. The free end of the peripheral wall is adjustable by an elastic band to fit over various sizes of items.
Edgar F. Trombly discloses an ICE CONTAINER in his U.S. Pat. No. 4,047,633, issued on Sep. 13, 1977. An inner container and an outer container are spaced apart one from the other and bonded together so as to form a dead air space therebetween. Decorative material may be placed between the inner container and a transparent outer container, but once the unit is sealed, the material can not be changed, as in the present invention.
None of the above inventions and patents, taken either singly or in combination, is seen to describe the instant invention as claimed.

Receptacle with compartmented peripheral wall for display of personalized graphics/text


Systems and methods for providing services to customers in response to customer requests received through one or more channels are disclosed. The present invention provides for a central fulfillment hub in which all requests from banking customers may be processed by applying a library of policies to systematically resolve the customer requests or engage resources necessary to resolve such requests. The disclosed fulfillment system, thus, may open a request, prefetch the necessary information, take steps to resolve the request, and close the request accordingly in a dynamic and efficient manner on a request-by-request basis. In addition, the system may provide security mechanisms to secure access to resources, including applications and data, based on applications, assigned user roles or user, activities, and access control configurations. Further, the system may dynamically allocate employees across teams based on system demand and provide secured access to the resources accordingly.

Financial institutions offer customers a wide range of services related to banking, investments, loans and other financial services. While international banks may offer their customers more services than their regional counterparts, banks, in general, operate in a similar fashion regardless of their size. The various essential aspects, products, and lines of business of banks are often compartmentalized and separated into individual units, with each unit responsible for a unique function of the bank. For example, one unit may be responsible for processing applications, another may be responsible for processing deposits, and yet another may be responsible for claims and dispute resolutions. Other types of units may be responsible for the financial institution's credit card, insurance and investment related lines of business. By having requests and issues resolved by specialized units of experienced professionals trained in handling particular issues, cost-efficiency and effectiveness may be maximized.
However, as banks and their units grow, so does the complexity of incoming customer requests that may be received through any number of channels of any number of business units. Often the case, incoming requests contain multiple individualized requests, each of which must be processed and resolved by a particular unit. Moreover, individual requests often require the help and input of multiple units at the bank in order to fully resolve the issues. For example, in response to a notice from a customer that his account has not been fully credited with a check deposit, a unit responsible for check deposit claims may need to communicate with a debit account unit to get the customer account information; a reconcilement services unit to settle the differences with another bank; a retail claims deposit unit to resolve additional issues; and so on. Such inefficiencies may be partly attributed to the compartmentalization of customer information by the units, as each unit may store unique information about the customer and his or her accounts. This often leads to incomplete awareness of information among the business units and incomplete or incorrect responses to customer requests. The deficiencies of currently available systems become even more apparent as the customer requests become more complex.
With so many different units in a financial institution, the channels that are available to customers are numerous. Because customers are not well versed in the functional capabilities of every financial unit in a financial institution, the proper branch and channel for customers to submit requests are often unclear. The customers are left with difficult decisions, often resorting to blind guessing.
Furthermore, in order to fulfill customer service requests, users must have access to applications, services and data from all of the relevant sources. But, the resources necessary to fulfill such requests may vary greatly across an organization and from employee to employee. Employees, for instance, may have different responsibilities, capabilities, security clearances, and so on, each of which may dictate what resources should be accessible to each employee. Indeed, such entitlements may change from day-to-day based on business needs, entitlement requirements, regulations, and other factors. Ultimately, it is currently expensive, time-consuming and overly-burdensome to manage these entitlements on a manual basis and to reallocate employees while properly adjusting entitlements.
In addition, training is an essential tool to ensure that customer requests are being proficiently fulfilled. Indeed, employees must be adequately trained to properly utilize the applications, services and data that they would use when working with a customer. However, at present, access to such tools are not necessarily tied to the completion of any training, thereby allowing employees with little to no experience to have access to important customer data. Even where an employee is restricted from access to particular information until he or she completes training, the process of providing access to applications, information and other data based on this completion, is a manual and time-consuming process.
Accordingly, there is an essential need for a solution that can improve the experience of the customers and the efficiency of the financial institution in managing and processing customer service requests, including by dynamically providing the resources and information of the various units in a flexible, variable and portable manner as the requests are received over any number of channels. Further, the solution should reduce the complexities of service requests from the perspective of the customer, including by not requiring the customer to have integral knowledge of an institution's organizational structure when placing requests. Further still, the solution should dynamically manage entitlements and security while efficiently providing access to applications, services and data necessary for the processing of customer service requests.

Enterprise fulfillment system with dynamic prefetching capabilities, secured data access capabilities and system monitoring


A grip assembly for a hand gun, including two body panels which are received at opposite sides of a handle of the gun, and which may be formed either separately or integrally as a unitary body, with at least one grip element being mountable in fixed position relative to the body panels and relative to the handle. Preferably, the assembly includes both a forward grip unit and a back strap formed at least in part of deformable elastomeric material for cushioning contact of the grip assembly with the user's hand. The forward grip unit may have two side portions to be received at outer sides of the two body panels, with a forward strap extending between and interconnecting the side portions at the front of the handle. The body panels may be connected to the handle by extension of a pin through those panels and through an opening in the handle. The same pin may also extend through an opening in the back strap to secure the body panels, the forward grip unit, and the back strap in fixed relative positions.

Various different types of grips have been devised in the past for attachment to pistols and other hand guns to enable a user to better hold and aim the gun, or to reduce recoil or otherwise improve the comfort with which the gun is held and fired. Many of the most popular grips have had gripping surfaces formed of an elastomeric material, to be slightly deformable under pressure and thus cushion the contact between the gun and a user's hand. However, some guns currently on the market are so constructed that deformable grips of the previously devised types can not be easily attached to these guns. For example, one such gun is produced with a rigid plastic grip of U-shaped horizontal section which is slipped onto the handle of the gun from the rear, and is then retained in position by a pin extending through registering openings in the grip and in a lower portion of the handle.


A training door, door frame, and system are disclosed that allow first responders to train on breaking open locked doors. The door frame provides a channel for a replaceable rod or bar formed of a door material, so that during training, while the rod or bar may be disfigured by repeated training exercises, the remainder of the door and frame remain intact. In this manner, only the rod or bar may need to be replaced after repeated training, rather than the entire door or frame.

Firefighters or other first responders are often confronted with the urgent need to gain access through locked doors or windows for several reasons, i.e. to effectively fight a fire, to get help to the elderly, to help stricken individuals get necessary medical care, etc. Gaining quick access through locked doors can be paramount to successfully fighting a fire for many reasons, including: accessing the fire itself; opening an emergency escape route; searching for trapped persons; providing ventilation; obtaining a strategic location from which to combat the fire; etc.
Firefighters carry tools with them for fighting fires. Two tools that firefighters carry and which are used in breaching locked doors include a Halligan bar and fire axe. Halligan bars were first made in the 1940s and comprise a fork at one end and an adz blade and pike at the other end. In use, the Halligan bar's adz end is placed between the door and the doorjamb to pry the two apart. The adz can be hammered further between the door and doorjamb by using a flat side of the fire axe as a sledge hammer. In this way, the tools are used to crush the door or doorjamb and pry the door away from the doorjamb thereby opening the doorway.
An expert, well trained firefighter wielding a Halligan bar and fire axe can breach virtually any locked door in a matter of seconds no matter whether the door and doorjamb are constructed of wood, metal, or other materials. However, to become an expert in using Halligan bars and fire axes requires hours of dedicated training in their use.
Conventional systems have been developed to provide training to firefighters and others in the use of Halligan bars and fire axes for breaching locked doors, but these systems contain one or more disadvantages that provide a less than stellar training experience. For example, such systems may be bulky and very heavy which makes them difficult to move to new locations. Movement to new locations, i.e. different firehouses, for these systems requires that they first be completely disassembled, the parts moved to the new location, and then the parts reassembled at the new location with these steps being repeated for each move.
The conventional systems also have the drawback of using movable springs or hydraulic systems that attempt to simulate the effect of crushing the door or doorjamb by providing tension or resistance to the training firefighter. However, the crushability of a door or doorjamb depends upon the material that is being crushed be it wood, metal, or other materials. Yet the movable springs or hydraulic systems even when set to a particular setting associated with the simulation of crushing a particular material do not accurately reproduce the feeling of actually crushing that particular material.
Other conventional training systems do not allow for repeated uses before key portions of the system need to be replaced or new undamaged doors need to be utilized for additional training sessions.


The present invention relates to a counterfeit currency detection system capable of scanning currency on front and back for serial numbers, front and back plate numbers and quadrant numbers. The scanning is digitally computerized and compared to a data bank containing current information on counterfeit currency to determine validity of the present currency.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to optical detection devices and more particularly to a novel optical detection device for use in examining paper currency for genuineness during a high speed handling and counting operation.
This invention relates to a detector of counterfeit currency as contrasted to genuine U.S. paper currency of any denomination.
The present invention is directed to a counterfeit currency detector so as to provide a quick and simple means for detecting counterfeit U.S. paper currency. The invention requires little or no skill to use. The invention may be used to validate paper currency of any origin or country.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The present invention relates to the examination of bills or other currency for purposes such as determining their authenticity and denomination, and more particularly to methods and apparatus for achieving a high level of acceptance of valid bills or currency while simultaneously maintaining a high level of rejection of non-valid bills or currency, such as counterfeits. While the present invention is applicable to testing of bills and other currency, for the sake of simplicity, the exemplary discussion which follows is primarily in terms of paper currency.
The application of the present invention to the testing of paper money, banknotes and other currency will be immediately apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art.
It has long been recognized in the field of bill and currency testing that a balance must be struck between the conflicting goals of "acceptance" and "rejection"--perfect acceptance being the ability to correctly identify and accept all genuine items no matter their condition, and perfect rejection being the ability to correctly discriminate and reject all non-genuine items. When testing under ideal conditions, no difficulty arises when trying to separate ideal or perfect bills from bills or counterfeit bills that have different characteristics even if those differences are relatively slight. Data identifying the characteristics of the ideal bills can be stored and compared with data measured from a bill or bill to be tested. By narrowly defining bill acceptance criteria, valid bills that produce data falling within these criteria can be accepted and bills that produce data falling outside these criteria can be rejected. A well-known method for bill acceptance and bill rejection is the use of bill acceptance windows to define criteria for the bill acceptance. Of course, in reality, neither the test conditions nor the bills to be tested are ideal. Windows or other tests must be set up to accept a range of characteristic bill data for worn or damaged genuine bills, and also to compensate for environmental conditions such as extreme heat, extreme cold, humidity and the like. As the acceptance windows or other bill testing criteria are widened or loosened, it becomes more and more likely that a bill or counterfeit bill will be mistakenly accepted as genuine. As test criteria are narrowed or tightened, it becomes more likely that a genuine bill will be rejected.
Genuine U.S. currency has a magnetic property which is capable of being detected by a magnetic sensor. A hysteresis curve in which magnetization is plotted against magnetizing force of the black ink on a U.S. one dollar bill. The plot is in units of EMU and Oersteds. The plot of the retentivity of black ink on U.S. paper currency is significantly less than the saturation level, indicating that it is preferable to sense the saturation level rather than the retentivity level. This can be accomplished by magnetizing the bill at the sensing location. Previous attempts to accomplish this suffer from the following problems:
1. The magnet tends to saturate the mu-metal shield surrounding the magnetic pick up head, thereby reducing the shielding effectiveness, and PA1 2. The magnet tends to vibrate during machine operation causing an unacceptable magnetic noise source.
In order to solve these problems, the present invention is characterized by comprising a optical head which is utilized as the optical scanning instrument thereby completely eliminating the need for a permanent magnet. In addition, the problems of reduced shielding effectiveness and unacceptable optical noise cannot arise.
The present invention relates to counterfeit detectors for United States paper currency. With modern improvements in copying methods it has become relatively easy for counterfeiters to reproduce paper currency. The production of passable copies no longer requires the work of a skilled engraver. Photographic methods can be used to make accurate plates in a very short time. In addition electrostatic copying equipment has been so perfected that reasonable color copies of legitimate notes can be made easily and rapidly. As a result there has been a steadily growing amount of false currency and an increased cost to merchants and others who must absorb the loss when these copies are passed.
Some methods to detect counterfeit employ special illumination. Because United States bills are printed on rag bond and use no brighteners, they possess characteristic optical properties. Under ordinary light they will have an off-white appearance. Under ultraviolet illumination they will not fluoresce. Papers containing wood pulp and brighteners will not have these properties. A new paper has become available to some counterfeiters however which more closely resembles that used for legitimate notes.
Despite the use of previous optical machines the most effective detection of counterfeit to date has been by highly trained observers who look for small imperfections in the printing.
Prior to the present invention there have existed devices for the detection of counterfeit currency, which devices range in degree of complexity, all of which are requisite of many complicated parts and normally require an operator with considerable skill in order to make proper determinations of the fact of counterfeit currency. Included within the prior art detectors are those which utilize at least partially ultra-violet radiation together with necessary complicating elements.
It has been ascertained through tests and investigations that almost all genuine paper currency made by the U.S. Mint is made from paper which does not include any fluorescent dyes, optical bleaches, or pigments. When genuine paper currency is illuminated by ultraviolet light from approximately 2,500 to approximately 4,000 angstrom units, the currency generally does not exhibit a chromamorphic response other than that naturally attributable to the cotton or linen stock. In recent years, even the U.S. Mint has had difficulty in obtaining rag stock completely free from fibers containing optical bleaches or other fluorescent materials.
Almost all counterfeit currency printed in the past 15 years has been made from rag stock which has a definite chromamorphic response in the blue range when activated by properly filtered ultraviolet light. The present invention does not respond to this descrepency independent of the search of the plate numbers and the invention is predicated thereon.
Occasionally, genuine U.S. paper currency contains isolated fibers which exhibit a chromamorphic response. This is particularly, but not exclusively, true with respect to 10 and 20 dollar bills from the 1963 series. The response exhibited by such currency can be distinguished, with some experience, from counterfeit currency in which the entire unprinted paper surface exhibits a uniform, unbroken fluorescence in blue range, varying in brightness with the amount of optical bleach in the paper stock.
Much counterfeit paper currency, although containing optical bleach, may have a low level of chromamorphic response which is indistinguishable, or nearly so, from legal paper currency, when viewed in an area of high ambient visible light. Besides the fact that on occasion genuine paper currency will exhibit a chromamorphic response which might confuse someone other than a viewer who is well trained or instructed, there are other explanations for possible confusion. For example, genuine currency is often left in wearing apparel which is washed in a bath containing a high amount of optical bleach. Some of the bleach is absorbed by the paper stock and tends to lead one to suspect it as being counterfeit. After viewing tens of thousands of bills in banks, only two such bills have come to our attention. Hence, after considerable experimentation, it has been ascertained that there is another characteristic of genuine paper currency which will facilitate further tests in confirmation of counterfeit currency. It has been ascertained that the black ink used to print the intaglio impression of genuine paper currency has optical characteristics which are detectable and will exhibit the specific reaction to a optical field. It is believed that the incorporation of optical pigment in the black ink has been a specification for genuine paper currency since 1941. The present invention contemplates subjecting any suspected counterfeits to a optical field and the lack of any response will be confirmation that the particular paper currency is counterfeit.
One example of the use of such windows is described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,918,564 and 3,918,565, both assigned to the assignee of the present invention. U.K. Application Serial. No. 89/23456.1 filed Oct. 18, 1989, and assigned to the assignee of the present invention, is one response to the real world compromise between achieving adequately high levels of acceptance and rejection at the same time. This U.K. application describes techniques for establishing non-uniform windows that maintain a high level of acceptance while achieving a high level of rejection.
Another prior art approach is found in the Mars Electronics IntelliTrac..TM.. Series products. The IntelliTrac..TM.. Series products operate substantially as described in European Patent Application EP 0 155 126, which is assigned to the assignee of the present invention.
Examples of such prior detectors are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,951,164, and U.S. Pat. No. 2,950,799 both of Timms, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,618,765 to Cooper. With regard to the latter, there is disclosed a viewing window having ultra-violet light bulbs mounted immediately therebeneath with bulbs and the viewing window being above a flat mounting surface available through a port for the insertion of currency to be examined. This particular Cooper apparatus requires that the reflected ultra-violet light be viewed through a window having a filter therein, the filter of necessity having a light blue color thereby permitting the viewing of the light blue or bluish-white chromamorphic response of counterfeit paper currency under the ultra-violet light from the ultra-violet bulbs.


A pedal actuated switch assembly The switch assembly comprises a housing, a linear actuator resiliently supported in the housing and coupled with the a pedal for linear movement relative to the housing, a rotational actuator rotatably supported in the housing and coupled with the linear actuator such that the linear movement of the linear actuator produces a rotational movement of the rotational actuator, and an electrical switch supported in the housing and controllable by the rotational movement of the rotational actuator for selectively opening and closing the electrical switch.

Pedal actuated switch assemblies are used in vehicles for operating or interacting with various brake-related systems on the vehicle, such as brake lights, brake assisting systems, engine brakes, and cruise control systems, among others.
It is desirable to provide pedal actuated switch assemblies that operate reliably, do not interfere with a smooth feel during braking, and can be easily mounted in different positions relative to the brake pedal for vehicles having different build.


A plasma display panel is driven by providing a plurality of subfields within one field period, the subfield having an initializing period in which the initializing discharge is generated in a discharge cell by applying a ramp-waveform voltage that is gradually descending to a scan electrode, an address period in which an address discharge is generated in the discharge cell by applying a scan pulse voltage to the scan electrode, and a sustain period in which sustain discharges by the number of times corresponding to the luminance weight are generated in the selected discharge cell. The lowest voltage is set of the descending ramp-waveform voltage in the subfield where the luminance weight is the smallest lower than the same voltage in the subfield where the luminance weight is the largest, and a voltage is kept for a prescribed period after the descending ramp-waveform voltage reaches the lowest voltage in the subfield where the luminance weight is the smallest.

In an AC surface discharge type panel that is typical as a plasma display panel (in the following, abbreviated as a "panel"), a large number of discharge cells are formed between a front substrate and a rear substrate arranged facing each other. In the front substrate, a plurality of display electrode pairs each consisting of one pair of a scan electrode and a sustain electrode are formed in parallel to each other on a front surface glass substrate, and a dielectric layer and a protective layer are formed to cover these display electrode pairs. In the rear substrate, a plurality of parallel data electrodes are formed on a back surface glass substrate, a dielectric layer is formed to cover these, and on top of it, a plurality of barrier ribs are formed in parallel to the data electrodes, and a phosphor layer is formed on the surface of the dielectric layer and a side surface of the barrier rib. The front substrate and the rear substrate are arranged facing each other so that the display electrode pair and the data electrode stereoscopically intersect, are sealed, and a discharge gas containing 5% of xenon at a partial pressure ratio, for example, is sealed in a discharge space in the inside. Here, a discharge cell is formed in a part where the display electrode pair and the data electrode are facing each other. In a panel with such configuration, color display is performed by generating an ultraviolet ray by gas discharge in each discharge cell and exciting a phosphor each having a color of red (R), green (G), and blue (B) to emit light.
A subfield method, that is, a method of dividing one field period into a plurality of subfields and then performing display gradation by a combination of the subfields to emit light, is a general method of driving the panel. Each subfield has an initializing period, an address period, and a sustain period, generates an initializing discharge in the initializing period, and forms wall charges that are necessary for the subsequent writing operation on each electrode. In the address period, address discharges are generated selectively in a discharge cell that performs a display, and the wall charges are formed. Then, in the sustain period, a sustain pulse is applied alternately on the display electrode pair consisting of the scan electrode and the sustain electrode, a sustain discharge in the discharge cell where the address discharge was generated is generated, and image display is performed by making the phosphor layer of the corresponding discharge cell emit light.
Further, also in the subfield method, a drive method is disclosed in which the contrast ratio is improved by decreasing emission that does not relate to the display gradation as much as possible by performing the initializing discharge using a voltage waveform that changes gradually and further performing the initializing discharge selectively to the discharge cell where the sustain discharge is performed.
Specifically, the operation of initializing all cells is performed in which all discharge cells are discharged in the initializing period of one subfield among a plurality of subfields, and a selected initializing operation is performed in which only a discharge cell in which the sustain discharge is performed is initialized in the initializing period of other subfields. As a result, emission that is not related to a display becomes only emission accompanied by the discharge of the all cell initializing operation, and image display with high contrast becomes possible (for example, refer to Patent Document 1).
By driving in such way, luminance in the black display region that changes depending on emission that is not related to the display of an image becomes only faint emission in the all cell initializing operation, and image display with high contrast becomes possible.
However, in recent years, a panel has been made into a larger screen to achieve high definition, and because of that, the address discharge becomes unstable, the wiring discharge is not generated in the discharge cell where the display is supposed to be performed, and the quality of the image display is deteriorated, or the voltage that is necessary to generate the address discharge stably becomes high.
Patent Document 1: Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. 2000-242224

Plasma display panel drive method and plasma display device


Score determination means 62 determines a score, which indicates how accurately points in real space in respective images respectively acquired by a plurality of image acquisition means represent a target object, for each combination of image acquisition means and point in real space. View status determination means 63 determines the status of view to each point in real space from each image acquisition means by using non-target object presence information indicating to image acquisition means where a non-target object that conceals a target object is present, and determines probability density functions of a score corresponding to the result of the view status determination. Existence probability calculation means 64 determines an existence probability of a target object being present at a point in real space by using probability density functions for each combination of the image acquisition means and point in real space. Estimation information creation means 65 creates information for estimating position from the existence probability.

An image monitoring system for estimating the position of an object is described in Patent Document 1. The system described in Patent Document 1 acquires images from each of a plurality of cameras so that a portion of the fields of the plurality of cameras mutually overlap with respect to a real space (three-dimensional space) in which the position of an object is to be estimated. A moving body region of the target object is then detected using background subtraction processing and frame subtraction processing. Each camera is calibrated in advance for real space. The system described in Patent Document 1 converts moving body regions detected from images of each camera into a planar coordinate system designated within each real space, detects overlapping of moving regions after conversion, and determines the presence of a real body region in real space or estimates the position where it is present.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2008-15573 (paragraphs. 0015 to 0046)
In the system described in Patent Document 1, moving body regions detected from images of each camera are converted to a planar coordinate system designated within each real space, and if converted moving body regions overlap with respect to all cameras, an object is estimated to be present at that position. In this system, the range of space in which the position of an object can be estimated is limited to overlapping regions of the fields of all cameras. For example, FIG. 19 indicates an example of a range over which object position can be estimated in a system relating to the present invention. In FIG. 19, the arrows represent the range of the fields of each camera. An overlapping region of the fields of cameras 101 to 103 shown in FIG. 19 is the region indicated with diagonal lines, and in the system described in Patent Document 1, only the position of an object present in this range can be estimated. Furthermore, in FIG. 19, real space is indicated schematically in two dimensions.
A technique has been considered for expanding the region in which position can be estimated in which, in the case moving body regions obtained from two cameras overlap, an object is determined to be present in that overlapping region. FIG. 20 indicates an example of a range over which an object position can be estimated in the case of using this technique. As shown in FIG. 20, the position of an object can be estimated within a range in which the fields of the two cameras overlap, and the range over which object position can be estimated is greater than that of FIG. 19. In this case, however, there are cases in which erroneous detection occurs. FIG. 21 indicates an example of the occurrence of erroneous detection in the case of expanding the range over which object position can be estimated. The case of estimating the positions of three objects 111 to 113 shown in FIG. 21 is used as an example. In addition, the broken line arrows shown in FIG. 21 represent the view volume for the objects. In the example shown in FIG. 21, if the regions of objects obtained from two cameras overlap, an object is determined to be present in that region. Accordingly, the ranges indicated with the bold lines are object detection regions and error occurs in these regions. Although the detection regions can be photographed with a camera other than the two cameras used to detect position in the state of those portions of the detection regions that are to the inside of the objects 111 to 113 in particular (regions indicated with diagonal lines), this ends up resulting in erroneous detection. For example, although the state of a region 115 indicated with diagonal lines can be photographed with the camera 102, the object ends up being determined to be present based on images obtained from the cameras 101 and 103.
As has been described above, when a region where an object position can be estimated is attempted to be expanded, there was the problem of the occurrence of erroneous detection and a decrease in the accuracy of estimation of object position.
In addition, the accuracy of estimation of object position also ends up decreasing if a stationary object is present that conceals a target object for which position is to be estimated. For example, if a stationary object such as a desk, billboard or pillar is present between a target object and a camera, occlusion occurs with respect to the target object and the accuracy at which object position is estimated ends up decreasing. This is because the target object is concealed by the presence of the stationary object, thereby preventing specification of a moving body region of the target object. Since a moving body region is unable to be specified, an erroneous determination is made that a moving body region is not present even though the target object is actually present.

Information creation device for estimating object position and information creation method and program for estimating object position


Generally, this disclosure provides systems, devices and methods for improved electrical coupling of multiple ground planes of a device. The device may include a plurality of ground planes and an electrically conductive ground clip. The ground clip may include a base portion configured to secure the ground clip to the device and a plurality of spring fingers. Each of the spring fingers may be configured to contact and electrically couple to one of the plurality of ground planes, wherein the ground clip is to provide a conduction path between each of the spring fingers. One of the spring fingers may pass through an opening or cut-through in a first ground plane to contact a second ground plane. The device may be a mobile communication or computing platform.

Electronic devices, including mobile platforms such as, for example, tablets and smart phones, are being designed and manufactured with reduced profiles or widths. The resulting volume limitations may provide less space for electrical connections between ground planes and make such connections more difficult to fabricate and less reliable. Existing solutions may use conductive fabrics, foams and/or adhesives. These techniques generally require time to set or cure and may lose their effectiveness over time with respect to both contact and electrical conduction properties. Additionally, fabrics and adhesives are typically restricted to a given thickness which may raise manufacturing tolerance issues.
Although the following Detailed Description will proceed with reference being made to illustrative embodiments, many alternatives, modifications, and variations thereof will be apparent to those skilled in the art.

Method and device for coupling multiple ground planes


A pipe connection fitting includes a gasket holder ring, a flap ring and a grip ring operably coupled together. A terminal housing is configured to engage with the gasket holder, flap ring and grip ring to form the pipe connection fitting adjacent an end of a pipe. The flap ring includes a plurality of tabs extending therefrom to provide an abutment for controlling a relative position of the grip ring.

There are a many different types of fittings operable to join pipes together. In some aspects it can be desirable to disassemble a pipe connection fitting from a pipe and reassemble the pipe connection fitting on the same or a different pipe. It can be further desirable to provide a pipe connection fitting that can position components in a defined location such that a fluid tight connection with a pipe can be repeatedly made. Some existing systems have various shortcomings relative to certain applications. Accordingly, there remains a need for further contributions in this area of technology.