Apparatus and method of verifying personal identity of an authorized user and providing information necessary to gain access to one or more secure sites in response to such verification. The apparatus is embodied in a hand-held device having an input pad for a biometric parameter such as a finger (thumb) print, an LCD and a small keypad. The device is initialized by placing the authorized user's thumb on the input pad and pressing an enter key to store a template commensurate with the thumb print. Thereafter, the device may be activated only by a match of a print presented to the input pad with the previously stored template. By operation of scroll keys on the device keypad, the user enters names of secure sites to which access is desired. A unique password is generated by a random number generator and assigned to each secure site named. The password is stored both in the device and in the computer of the secure site. After activation of the device, previously stored site names and passwords may be recalled and displayed on the device by operation of the keypad. The password is then communicated to the secure site computer via a separate PC. Biometric data is not transmitted or stored in a data file, but exists only in encypted form in the device.

The present invention relates to apparatus for and methods of verifying both the physical identity of an individual and that individual's authority to gain access to a secured site. More particularly, the invention relates to methods of verifying user identity and authority to access an otherwise inaccessible physical space, body of data, etc., and to a hand-held device useful in the implementation of such methods. The methods and apparatus of the invention are of the type including input and recognition of a biometric parameter of the user.
For purposes of the present discussion and disclosure of the invention, the term "secure(d) site" is used to refer to both physical areas, spaces and devices, as well as electronic domains, databases, and the like, to which access is restricted to certain authorized users. Access to a secured site may be provided either entirely electronically, as to a data bank, or by a combination of electronic and mechanical means, as by releasing a lock in response to authenticated electrical signals. The term "biometric parameter/characteristic/feature" is used to denote one or more physical attributes uniquely associated with a particular individual, such as a finger, thumb or hand print, a retinal or facial scan, a DNA sample, and the like. The term "biometric template" refers to a body of stored or storable electronic signals which uniquely correspond to a biometric parameter. The acronym "PIN" (Personal Identification Number) is defined as a sequence of characters (numbers, letters, symbols, etc.) each of which is, or may be, represented by a corresponding electrical signal, electrically or magnetically recorded code, or the like, and is used synonymously with "password."
The art and science of authentication and identification of human individuals is embodied in the simple concept of uniqueness. Uniqueness is defined, within acceptable risk parameters, as one or a combination of only three possible things, namely, (in the order of their traditional ranking from weakest to strongest): 1. something known only (uniquely) by the individual and which is verifiable by the secure host (e.g., mother's maiden name, a PIN, etc.)
2. something physically possessed only (uniquely) by the individual and verifiable by the secure
host (e.g., a token, smart card or synchronous algorithm result), and 3. some (unique) biometric parameter of the individual verifiable by the host. When one or more of these indicia of uniqueness is/are presented to and verified by the host, the individual is deemed to be authenticated as to identity and access to the secure site is permitted.
In order for an individual to present biometric and token based indicia of uniqueness to a host by conventional means, special provisions must be made at each host, often requiring apparatus at the user side interconnected to the host. For example, under traditional biometric and token based systems, a biometric template and/or token is passed to the host for authentication via a client-side reader compatible with the particular security/authentication hardware and software employed. The indicia of uniqueness must be received by the host and compared against a known and correlated collection of stored data. Accordingly, a privacy issue is raised as the individual user is required to relinquish otherwise private biometric data, in template form, to the host. Understandably, this results in a reluctance to accept and utilize such systems and is responsible, in large part, for the fact that such systems are not in widespread use today. Although a biometric scan is often used as the sole presentation of uniqueness to gain access to a secure workplace, and therefore "voluntary" only to the extent of accepting or declining the work, the combination of possessive (coded card) and cognitive (short PIN) indicia of uniqueness remains the ubiquitous form of authentication.

Method of authenticating proper access to secured site and device for implementation thereof


In an ink tank, there are provided a main ink chamber containing a capillary vessel member, and an intermediate ink chamber. When the ink is consumed, the ink held by capillary force of a capillary vessel member is supplied via a communication port from a joint port. The same amount of air as the amount of the consumed ink is conducted from the atmospheric communication port into the main ink chamber. The conducted ink is supplied via a groove formed in a lid to an upper surface of the capillary vessel member. As a result, the air is entered into the capillary vessel member under better condition. In a plane portion of the lid, the ink is in contact with only the capillary vessel member, and the ink remaining this portion is reduced. Thus, the ink using efficiency is increased.

The present invention relates to an ink tank for supplying ink to a print head, and to a recording apparatus with employment of this ink tank.
Conventionally, as the ink supply mechanism employed in the recording apparatus for recording by ink, as described in, for example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 63-87242, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,025,271, such an ink supply mechanism has been proposed that the porous member is arranged within the ink tank, one end of this porous member is coupled via the filter to the print head, and the other end thereof is provided with the air intake port. In the ink supply mechanism described in this publication, compression force is given to the foam corresponding to the porous member within the vessel by the tab. However, such an arrangement has a problem that the capillary force of the foam would be increased at the depression unit of the foam by the tab, and the ink may readily remain in the foam. Also, there is a design limitation such that to apply the proper compression force, the above-described arrangement could not be realized unless the ink dipped member per se is the elastic member.
Another conventional technique is described in, for instance, Japanese Patent Publication No. 5-23954. That is, in this ink tank, the projection portion is formed which constitutes the space between the inner wall surface of the ink tank and the ink dipped member. Furthermore, this ink tank includes means for communicating this space with the atmosphere. However, when the space is formed by the projection unit, the capillary vessel force of the ink dipped member would be similarly increased at the contact point between the projection unit and the ink dipped member. Thus, there is another problem that the ink may readily remain in the ink dipped member.
Furthermore, Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 6-15837 discloses the means having the projection portion around the atmospheric communication port in order that the ink does not dip into the atmospheric communication port. However, also in this case, the capillary vessel force of the porous member would be increased at the contact point between the projection portion and the ink-dipped porous member. Thus, there is a problem that the ink may readily remain in the porous material. Moreover, the porous member concaving with the projection portion may easily form the unwanted space between the inner wall surface of the ink tank and therewith. Accordingly, there is a risk to release negative pressure in the ink tank.


Planing amphibious vehicle (101) comprises engine (105) with internal cooling ducts (106). The engine is cooled first by air-water exchanger (102), and secondly by water-water exchanger (108). One or both exchangers may be located in compartment (119), separated from engine compartment (117) fully by bulkhead (80) (FIG. 4), or partially by bulkheads (118, 120). External water for exchanger (108) is drawn in from outside hull (109) through jet intake (114), the through inlet (115) in jet drive duct (116); and exhausted through outlet (123). Compartment (119) may also contain exhaust silencer (121). Numerals (103 and 104) denote grilles; (107) denotes cooling fan(s). FIG. 2 shows an alternative arrangement, with external water drawn from beneath the hull by pump (32). FIG. 1 shows front mounted radiator (2), covered by external flap (4) allowing air cooling to be shut down on water. FIG. 3 shows a water-water exchanger combined with the marine jet drive.

Inboard mounted internal combustion engines used to drive small marine craft are almost invariably directly cooled by water. This is pumped from the water around the craft directly via a filter through the engine block and thence overboard. This may necessitate measures to prevent internal corrosion of the engine.
Land vehicles, apart from a few which are air cooled, employ indirect means whereby liquid coolant is circulated through the engine block from and back to a heat exchanger, that is a radiator, which is cooled by air directed through the exchanger.
The problem with amphibians is that the sole provision of direct water cooling is not feasible because the vehicle may be on land, and air intakes for indirect cooling radiators cannot always be located in convenient positions. Furthermore, the difficulty of mounting a radiator in a convenient position may result in precious space being taken up by air ducts or fans or both.
External water-water heat exchangers have been tried on amphibians, but have two notable drawbacks. One is that they are susceptible to damage, particularly from foreign objects; the other is that they inhibit marine performance and reduce hydrodynamic efficiency by breaking up the otherwise smooth contour of the underside of the hull.


A system (140) prevents the spread of viruses in a network (100). The system (140) receives a hash value from a remote device (130), compares the hash value to a group of hash values associated with data messages including viruses, and generates a first message when the hash value matches one of the group of hash values. The first message instructs the remote device (130) to discard a received data message. The system (140) also generates a second message when the hash value does not match one of the group of hash values. The second message instructs the remote device (130) to forward the received data message to a user of the remote device (130).

Network attacks represent a major threat to the continuous operation of network devices. One type of network attack involves the sending of virus-infected e-mail messages. These e-mail messages typically include an attachment that, when opened at a receiving device, can cause tremendous damage to the receiving device (e.g., totally erasing the memory of the receiving device). Moreover, these types of attacks typically cause the receiving device to become part of the network attack by automatically forwarding the virus-infected e-mail message to e-mail addresses stored at the receiving device.
Current virus inoculation techniques rely on detecting a virus signature at the receiving device. This requires that the user continually update a virus table stored at the receiving device. Not only does the storage of such a table occupy valuable memory, but the above technique causes considerable user interaction. That is, a user must continually check and possibly pay for virus updates to ensure that his/her receiving device is best protected from attack.
Therefore, there exists a need for systems and methods that improve the security of networks and network devices.


A liquid crystal display (LCD) device is disclosed, in which a plurality of spacers are formed around one corresponding projection as the same size and spaced apart from each other, to prevent the deformation of column spacers and to prevent the touch defect, the LCD device including first and second substrates facing each other; gate and data lines crossing each other to define a unit pixel region on the first substrate; a thin film transistor at a crossing area of the gate and data lines; a projection on the predetermined portion of the gate line; a plurality of column spacers overlapped with the predetermined portions of the projection and provided on the second substrate at regular intervals; and a liquid crystal layer between the first and second substrates.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display device, and more particularly, to a liquid crystal display (LCD) device and a method of fabricating the same. Although the present invention is suitable for a wide scope of applications, it is particularly suitable for preventing touch defect.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Much effort has been made to research and develop various kinds of flat panel display devices as the demands for display device rise due to the ongoing development of the information age. The various kinds of flat panel display devices are LCD (liquid crystal display), PDP (plasma display panel), ELD (electroluminescent display), VFD (vacuum fluorescent display) and the like. Some of these flat panel display devices are already in use in various kinds of instruments.
Among the various flat display devices, the LCD has the advantageous of light weight, thin profile and low power consumption. Thus, the LCD has been replacing the CRT (cathode ray tube) and is a more portable image display device. For example, the LCD is used as a notebook computer monitor for a mobile usage. Further, the LCD can be used in less mobile applications, such as a TV monitor or a computer monitor. In order for the LCD to be a general image display device for various fields, the LCD not only has to maintain the features of the light weight, thin profile and low power consumption but also needs to be capable of implementing high-grade image having high definition and high luminance on a large-sized display panel.
In general, a liquid crystal display device includes a first substrate, a second substrate bonded to the first substrate with a predetermined gap in-between the first and second substrates, and a liquid crystal layer injected between the first and second substrates. A plurality of gate lines crossing a plurality of data lines define pixel areas on the first substrate. A pixel electrode is provided in each of the pixel areas. A thin film transistor is also provide in each of the pixel areas adjacent to where a data line and a gate line of the pixel area cross each other. The thin film transistor of a pixel area provides a data signal from the corresponding data line of the pixel area to the corresponding pixel electrode of the pixel area in response to a signal applied to the corresponding gate line of the pixel area.
A black matrix layer is formed on the second substrate, except for the pixel area, to block light. Red (R), green (G) and blue (B) color filter layers are formed within areas of the black matrix corresponding to each of the pixel areas to display colors. A common electrode is formed on the color filter layers for forming an electric field with the pixel electrodes to implement an image. More particularly, liquid crystal molecules of the liquid crystal layer between the first and second substrates are aligned by an electric field generated between the pixel electrode and the common electrode. By adjusting a quantity of light transmitted through the liquid crystal layer according to the degree of alignment of the liquid crystal layer, an image can be displayed.
The above-configured liquid crystal display device is called a TN (twisted nematic) mode liquid crystal display device. The TN mode liquid crystal display device has the disadvantage of a narrow viewing angle. To overcome this disadvantage of the TN mode liquid crystal display device, an in-plane switching (IPS) mode liquid crystal display device has been developed. In the IPS mode liquid crystal display device, a pixel electrode and a common electrode are formed parallel to each other in a pixel area of a first substrate with a predetermined distance between each other. A transverse electric field is generated between the pixel and common electrodes to align the molecules of a liquid crystal layer.
In both the TN mode and IPS mode, spacers are formed between the first and second substrates of the above-configured liquid crystal display device to sustain a predetermined gap for accommodating the liquid crystal layer. The spacers can be classified as either ball spacers or column spacers, depending on the shape of the spacers. The ball spacers are spherically shaped and are scattered on the first or second substrate. After the first and second substrates have been bonded to each other, the ball spacers are relatively free to move. And, each of the ball spacers has a relatively small contact area with the first or second substrate.
On the other hand, the column spacers are formed during an array fabrication process of either the first or second substrate. Each of the column spacers has a pillar shape having a predetermined height that is affixed to a predetermined substrate. Hence, a contact area of the column spacer with the first or second substrate is relatively greater than the contact area of the ball spacer with the first or second substrate. A related art liquid crystal display device having a column spacer according to a related art is explained with reference to the attached drawings as follows.
FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional diagram of the related art liquid crystal display device having a column spacer. Referring to FIG. 1, a liquid crystal display device having a column spacer includes a first substrate 30, a second substrate 40 facing the first substrate 30, a column spacer 20 provided between the first and second substrates 30 and 40, and a liquid crystal layer (not shown in the drawing) provided between the first and second substrates 30 and 40. A gate line 31 and a data line (not shown in the drawing) are arranged to cross each other on the first substrate 30 to define a pixel area. A thin film transistor (TFT) is formed adjacent to the crossing between the gate line 31 and the data line. A pixel electrode (not shown in the drawing) is formed in the pixel area.
Excluding the pixel area, a black matrix layer 41 is formed on the second substrate 40. A stripe type color filter layer 42 is formed on the black matrix layer corresponding to the pixel area on a vertical line parallel to the data line. A common electrode or an overcoat layer 43 is formed over the second substrate 40. A gate insulating layer 36 is formed over the first substrate 30, including the gate line 31, and a passivation layer 37 is formed on the gate insulating layer 36. The column spacer 20 is formed at a predetermined position over the gate line 31.
FIGS. 2A and 2B are a plan view and a cross-sectional view of a touch defect generated in a related art LCD device having column spacers, respectively. Referring to FIG. 2A and FIG. 2B, a stain is formed on a part of a liquid crystal panel 10 of the above-explained liquid crystal display device having the column spacer if a surface of the part of the liquid crystal panel 10 is touched by a hand or other external object. This stain is called a touch stain, which is generated on the liquid crystal panel 10 while the panel is being touch. If the stain remains on the panel 10 after being touched, it is called a touch degradation.
A touch stain is caused by a shift between the first and second substrates 1 and 2 due to a touch. The touch degradation is attributed to a large contact area of the column spacer 20 having considerable friction between the column spacer 20 and the first substrate 1, as compared to the friction that would be generated between the ball spacer structure and the first substrate in which the ball spacer structure has less contact area with the first substrate 1. Because of the friction between the column spacer 20 having a column shape and the first substrate 1, as shown in FIG. 2B, it takes a considerably long time for the stained panel to return to an original state after a shift between the first and second substrates 1 and 2 is caused by a touch. Hence, the stain remains until the shift between the first and second substrates 1 and 2 recovers back or is undone.
In addition or in the alternative, the LCD panel can have a gravity degradation. For example, if the LCD panel having a column spacer is held upright and is placed in an environment at a high temperature, the liquid crystals go through thermal expansion such that a cell gap is extended more than the height of the column spacer, which enables liquid crystal molecules to flow downward and make a lower end of the LCD panel bulge, which deteriorates image quality of the LCD panel.

Liquid crystal display device and method of fabricating the same


Apparatus for sterilizing objects with a gaseous ethylene oxide held in a sealed ampule of the type including a breakable section, includes a cartridge for holding the sealed ampule in a substantially immovable manner, the cartridge including a first chamber for containing the ampule, a second chamber for holding an absorbent cotton material to hold the liquid sterilant upon breaking open of the ampule, the first and second chambers being in communication with each other, a transverse bore extending into the first chamber and outlet openings in the second chamber; a push-button slidably movable in the transverse bore for breaking open the ampule upon depression of the push-button in the transverse bore, wherein, upon breaking open the ampule, the gaseous sterilant escapes from the ampule through the outlet openings into sterilizing contact with the objects; a releasable guard for preventing slidable movement of the push-button in the transverse bore to prevent breaking of the ampule; and a liner bag for holding the cartridge and the objects to be sterilized in a sealed manner.

The present invention relates generally to an apparatus for sterilizing objects and, more particularly, is directed to a novel actuating mechanism for a sterilization apparatus.
It is well known to sterilize surgical, medical, dental and other instruments and the like by exposing them to a gaseous sterilant in a closed container. In order to provide an arrangement that can be readily used for the sterilization of instruments, it is further known to provide the gaseous sterilant in an ampule, as disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,476,506, having a common assignee herewith, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
As disclosed therein, the ampule is in the form of a sealed gas-tight container made from a breakable material, such as glass, which is impervious to the sterilant. In order to provide for easy braking of the ampule, the ampule is preferably provided with a spout connected to the main body thereof by a reduced diameter neck, with the reduced diameter neck being provided with a score line for easy braking. The sterilant is preferably ethylene oxide, although any other suitable sterilant can be used. The ethylene oxide is maintained largely in a liquid state when sealed in the ampule.
The ampule is inserted and hermetically sealed in an inner plastic gas release bag or pouch made from a semi-permeable material such as polyethylene. In order to sterilize the instruments, the neck of the ampule is manually broken along the score line, while the ampule is in the gas release bag. As a result, the ethylene oxide boils so that all of the liquid is converted into gaseous form and released into the gas release bag to fill the same.
Thereafter, the gas release bag is inserted and sealed in an outer plastic liner bag, along with the instruments to be sterilized. Because the gas release bag is made from a semi-permeable material, the vapor of the sterilant will diffuse through the semi-permeable walls of the gas release bag at a rate which provides a sufficient concentration of sterilant within the liner bag to sterilize the instruments. The rate of diffusion of the sterilant through the walls of the gas release bag may be controlled by selecting the proper dimensions, thickness and pore size (i.e. permeability) of the gas release bag.
The liner bag is also made of a semi-permeable material, but provides a rate of diffusion to the atmosphere which does not permit a toxic level of the gaseous sterilant to reach the atmosphere surrounding the liner bag.
See also U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,505,775; 4,937,046; and 5,082,636, all having a common assignee herewith, and the entire disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.
With this arrangement, however, breaking of the ampule while it is in the gas release bag can become cumbersome, and during some times, difficult. This is because it is necessary to hold both the main body of the ampule and the spout separately, in order to break the neck along the score line, while the ampule is in the gas release bag.
Further, with such an arrangement, the permeability of the gas release bag is selected so that the peak concentration of the ethylene oxide in the liner bag occurs between two and three hours after the ampule has been broken. Because of this long time period, the user is able to break the ampule in the gas release bag, and then place the gas release bag within the liner bag, without being exposed to the gas.
However, if the gas release bag or pouch is fabricated of a highly porous, paper-like plastic material, such as that commonly sold under the trademark "TYVEK", the peak concentration of the gas is reached within the first ten minutes of release, yielding a higher initial ethylene oxide concentration and more rapid aeration from the same dose, where the dose is equal to the concentration multiplied by time. In such case, to provide protection for the user, the ampule must be broken while it is sealed in the gas release bag and while the gas release bag is sealed in the liner bag. As a result, it is more difficult to manipulate the ampule to break the same while the ampule is located in the sealed liner bag filled with objects to be sterilized, than in the case where the ampule is only in the gas release bag.
Further, with such an arrangement, no ethylene oxide is released by the gas release bag for about 15 minutes after the ampule is broken, and the peak concentration of ethylene oxide is reached in approximately 3 hours. It will be appreciated that this system is designed to operate at room temperature, and that the entire process takes approximately 38 hours, which includes a sterilization cycle that takes approximately 12 hours, followed by a 2 hour purging of the liner bag of ethylene oxide before the operator can open it safely, and followed lastly by a 24 hour cycle to air gas absorbent materials before they can be used. This operation, however, is unduly lengthy from a practical standpoint.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,528,268, also having a common assignee herewith, discloses an apparatus for testing the sufficiency of sterilization. With this apparatus, an ampule is held within a sleeve which, in turn, is held within a test tube. The test tube has a wedge-shaped bottom and the spout of the ampule faces the wedge-shaped bottom. An axially oriented plunger is slidably provided at the opposite open end of the test tube in order to bias the ampule downwardly in the axial direction of the test tube, whereupon the spout engages the wedge-shaped bottom and the ampule breaks along the score line.
However, there is no disclosure of using this apparatus for actually sterilizing objects in the manner taught by the aforementioned U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,476,506 and 5,082,636.


A p-type transparent oxide semiconductor includes tin oxide compounds represented by below chemical formula 1:Sn1-xMxO2  [Chemical Formula 1]                wherein, in the chemical formula 1, the M is tri-valent metal and the X is a real number of 0.01˜0.05. The p-type transparent oxide semiconductor is applicable to active semiconductor devices such as TFT-LCD and transparent solar cell, due to excellent electrical and optical properties and shows superior properties in aspects of visible light transmittance (T), carrier mobility (μ) and rectification ratio as well as transparency.

1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a transparent oxide with p-type having semiconductivity which can be used as active semiconductor devices such as TFT-LCD and transparent solar cell and a manufacture method of the same, particularly relates to TFT (Thin Film Transistor) of p-type transparent oxide semiconductor with new composition featured by remarkably superior properties such as visible light transmittance (T), carrier mobility (μ), and rectification ratio, and manufacture method of the same.
2. Background of the Invention
Although amorphous silicon (Si) is mainly used in the TFT (Thin Film Transistor) used for electric device currently, it has some disadvantages that switching speed is slow due to low carrier mobility and high temperature process is required in manufacturing thin film, compared with oxide semiconductor.
In addition, optical devices applying optical function need development of TFT (Thin Film Transistor) using a new p-type transparent oxide because of restrictions such as opacity caused by small band-gap originally possessed by the amorphous silicon.
Amorphous transparent oxide semiconductor (TOS) is capable of low temperature process, advantageous to epitaxy due to very low surface roughness from small particle size, and proper to micro-patterning including lithography process. Therefore, amorphous InGaO3 (ZnO)5 (IGZO) series n-type channel materials (mobility at RT: >10 cm2/Vs) has been developed and used as a part of TFT materials, until now. In order to manufacture active devices on flexible substrates such as semiconductor (inverters etc.), optical device (LED, LD etc.), and solar cell, it is required to develop of p-type oxide materials with excellent electric property of amorphous phase even at low temperature.
In the TFT development history, the oxide TFT announced by Phillips Research Institute in 1995 was a memory device manufactured by applying SnO2 ferroelectrics as gate dielectrics, which was the beginning of oxide TFT related studies. Then, when using InGaO3(ZnO)5 material published by Hosono et al, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan as TFT channel, a device with 80 cm2/Vs of mobility and 105 of Ion/off ratio was obtained [Hosono, et al, Science, 300, p1269 (2003)]. However, this device had a problem to need high temperature heat treatment over 1400° C. The reason that this device had very rapid mobility in spite of amorphous film was reported that overlap of s-orbital wavefunction having smallest anisotrophy according to metal valence electron direction in the oxide contributed to band charge transfer of election.
Since the results of Hosono et al., researches to obtain a new p-type semiconductor material has been progressed, but in the most cases of them, vacuum equipment was used during the process to manufacture the oxide semiconductor. Although in this method, low temperature process was possible, it had still a disadvantage to use an expensive equipment. Therefore, it is clear helpful to cost reduction to manufacture oxide semiconductor TFT using solution process.
Recently, some research groups has manufactured thin films through sol-gel method, MOD (metal organic decomposition method), nano-particle dispersion solution method, and chemical bath deposition (CBD) after preparing precursor at first.
For the solution using precursor, it is possible to vary its crystallinity and mobility using one component, two component, and three component system. For instance, Chang et al., Oregon State University, US realized high mobility as much as 30 cm2/Vs with printing method. However, in this case there was a disadvantage that high off current (Ioff) was not solved [Chang, et, al., J. Mater. Chem., 19, p. 3135 (2009)].
Like these, for materialization of TFT, the most researches has been based on organic semiconductor using solution process and the organic semiconductor TFT has been the first candidate as a next generation flexible display driving device for the last 10 years. However, the organic semiconductor TFT still has not solved difficult problems in terms of mobility, current density, confidence, and manufacturing process.
On the contrary, in case of the sol-gel oxide semiconductor process, its post heat treatment temperature is still higher in spite of several advantages and it is known that 500˜600° C. of temperature is required in manufacturing ZnO thin film alone. As the sol-gel method is a process to form an inorganic network through hydrolysis of precursors at appropriate pH, coat a substrate with a solution containing the above, and then produce metal oxide through post heat treatment, main ingredients of pre-polymerized colloid phase are ceramic precursors, so it leaves room for lowering heat treatment temperature. In this case, metal alkoxide or metal acetate is commonly used as a precursor and the precursor compound should have high solubility, maintain stable solution-phase, and produce little amount of precipitate after heat treatment.
The sol coating consists of dip coating, spin coating, and spray coating and some cases to apply the sol for manufacturing an oxide semiconductor by ink-jet printing has been reported. For instance, Moon et al., manufactured sol-gel solution for Zn,Sn Oxide (ZTO) to use it as an ink for ink-jet, where the transistor manufactured by printing ZTO (Sn: 30 mol %) solution between source electrode and drain electrode obtained 0.01 cm2/Vs of mobility and 105 of on/off current ratio. [J. H. Moon, et al., J. Phys. Chem. C, 112, p. 11082 (2008)]. In this case, although post heat treatment was performed at 500° C. by preparing sol-gel solution with 2-methoxyethanol and stabilizing agent by using zinc acetate dehydrate and tin acetate as source, it was determined that its mobility was low. Therefore on the basis of ZTO of which process was improved, a result that the mobility was improved to 0.1˜0.5 cm2/Vs by measuring TFT property after heat treatment at 350˜500° C. was published. Besides, another case to manufacture TFT through high temperature heat treatment after dip-coating or spin-coating of Zn1-xMgxO and Zn1-xZrO sol gel solution for preparing a thin film was reported. Recently, a result to form Zn0.97Zr0.03O thin film with sol-gel method at 300° C., relatively lower temperature as process temperature for TFT and demonstrate 4.1 inch QVGA TFT-LCD using this was published also and in this case, it was found that although Zinc acetate and zirconium propoxide were used as precursors, it resulted in properties such as 0.0042 cm2/Vs of mobility and 24.5V of Vth.
Because most oxide semiconductors which has been known until now shows n-type properties, if a transparent oxide semiconductor with p-type properties is materialized, it will be possible to manufacture CMOS type transparent electronic devices and there will be a lot of advantages for driving of OLED. Therefore, a research to seek p-type transparent oxide semiconductor material for transparent TFT devices is necessary.

P-type transparent oxide semiconductor, transistor having the same, and manufacture method of the same

KOREA INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY


A nonwoven fabric dispenser is provided with fixation elements attached to the body of the dispenser and a cutter assembly attached to a lid of the dispenser. Nonwoven fabric stock is secured by the fabric engagement structures when the lid of the dispenser is in a closed configuration and the cutter assembly is configured to separate a sheet of the nonwoven fabric stock of a desired length.

Nonwoven fabrics are sheet or web structures made from entangled fibers that are bonded together and can exhibit characteristics such as absorbency, resilience, stretch, softness, and strength. Nonwoven fabric stock can be provided with liquid solutions for various applications (e.g., wet wipes, towelettes, conditioning wipes, protectant wipes, etc.) and are stored in, and dispensed from, containers in various ways. Some forms of nonwoven fabric stock are provided as individual sheets, while others are provided as a continuous roll having perforations and can be pulled out of a container having a necked opening.
What is needed, but has not yet been developed, are methods and devices for dispensing nonwoven fabric stock materials. This and other needs are addressed by the nonwoven fabric dispensers of the present disclosure.


A system having transmitters, receivers, transceivers, actuators, sensors, input/output rack, and/or a computer with application specific software and/or hardware, for secure communication and control. The system may use frequency hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) and encryption. Schedules for FHSS and encryption keys may be varied in variously elaborate ways. The system may utilize a distributed control system to manage the transmission and reception of signals, control operations, FHSS scheduling, changing of keys, and information.

The invention pertains to communications and particularly to communication systems having characteristics for improving transmission of messages, data and the like. More particularly, the invention pertains to systems having characteristics for improved security of communications.
This patent document is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/906,066, filed Feb. 1, 2005, and entitled "Predictive Modeling System for Spectrum Use".


The present invention represents ovicidal/pediculicidal anti-lice active containing compositions containing a combination of alkanol synergizers selected from the group consisting of phenyl C.sub.2 -C.sub.6 alkanols, phenyl C.sub.2 -C.sub.6 diols, and mixtures thereof, with quaternary ammonium salts, long chain (CH.sub.12 -C.sub.22 fatty amines, and mixtures thereof. The compositions include hair care compositions which are storage stable at high temperatures.

Infestation of the body by lice is an age old problem. Reference to these pests can be found throughout documented history. Lice have been responsible for the spread of typhus, causing decimation of many armies and navies of the military powers of the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Lice are still considered as disease vectors and present serious health problems throughout the world. Not only do lice carry a wide variety of bacteria on their exterior surfaces, but their fecal matter transmits disease when it enters the puncture wounds lice inflict during feeding.
The human lice genus includes pubic lice, body lice, and head lice. Although related, each of them have specific characteristics with regard to habitat and feeding. The present invention is most useful in treatment of head lice. Head lice are small hard-shelled ectoparasites which cling to hair follicles while feeding, mating and laying eggs. The louse must remain on the head as it will die within a short period of time when removed. Head lice proliferate at an incredible rate. A louse is ready to mate and reproduce within 10 hours after hatching. Under ideal conditions, a female louse may produce up to 300 eggs in its lifetime. Ideal conditions include an adequate food supply, environmental temperatures from about 28.degree. C .to about 32.degree. C., and relative humidity from about 70% to about 90%. Poor hygienic and grooming habits are also known to contribute significantly to the spread of lice. Thus, lice infestations are most serious in tropical areas where the inhabitants have both substandard hygienic facilities and practices.
The louse's hard keratinous shell serves as protection from external elements. Lice eggs (or ova) are similarly protected by a chitinous sheath surrounding the eggs and attached to the hair follicles. Although the lice may be affected by the use of an insecticide, often the eggs remain resistant to attack. Thus, the optimum treatment should kill the adult lice and interrupt the gestation of the eggs.
Biologically active agents for the control of lice are well known in the art. Lindane (gamma-benzene hexachloride), synergized natural pyrethrins, and synthetic derived compounds known as pyrethroids have all been used as pediculicides in lice treatment compositions. However, since lindane has a poor safety profile and lice have developed a significant degree of resistance to it, natural pyrethrins and synthetic pyrethroids are routinely chosen for use in pediculicide and ovicide compositions.
Natural pyrethrins are made from extracts of naturally insecticidal chrysanthemum flowers and have been used since the early 1930's. European Patent Application 191,236 published Aug. 20, 1986; European Patent Application 262,885, published Apr. 6, 1988; and British Patent Specification 1,593,601, published Jul. 22, 1981, all disclose the use of natural pyrethrins for treating lice. U.S. Pat. No. 4,668,666, Allan, issued May 26, 1987, notes that natural pyrethrins' poor environmental stability is a severe drawback in treatment of lice, as its low residual action, due to this instability, necessitates frequent follow-up treatments.
Synthetic pyrethroids became popular during World War II when chrysanthemum flowers became nearly impossible to get. Besides being cheaper and available, they were also somewhat more stable than the natural product. This long-term stability extended toxicity to future hatching ova. Although generally more effective against lice than natural pediculicides, some of the synthetic actives are more toxic to the subject being treated.
Anti-lice formulations eliminating insecticides are known in the art. Alkanols are known to effectively control head lice infestations. British Patent Specification 1,604,857, published Dec. 16, 1981, and European Application 262,885, Gordon, published Apr. 6, 1988, disclose that in general, alkanols either singularly or as adjuvants, may be toxic to lice. Primary as well as aromatic alkanols are disclosed therein as components of anti-lice compositions, such as sprays and shampoos. Phenyl ethanol is specifically disclosed in the British Patent Specification as a lone toxicant used at a level of 15%. No level is disclosed when it is used as an adjuvant.
Cationic surfactants are known as synergizers for pediculicides; see British Patent Specification 1,593,601, published Jul. 22, 1981. U.S. Pat. No. 4,183,913, Enders et al., issued Jan. 15, 1980, specifically discloses quaternary ammonium salts as synergizers for pediculicides. Quaternary ammonium salts are disclosed as the lone pediculicide for head lice in European Patent Application 191,236, published Aug. 20, 1986.


A Chinese speech recognition system and method is disclosed. Firstly, a speech signal is received and recognized to output a word lattice. Next, the word lattice is received, and word arcs of the word lattice are rescored and reranked with a prosodic break model, a prosodic state model, a syllable prosodic-acoustic model, a syllable-juncture prosodic-acoustic model and a factored language model, so as to output a language tag, a prosodic tag and a phonetic segmentation tag, which correspond to the speech signal. The present invention performs rescoring in a two-stage way to promote the recognition rate of basic speech information and labels the language tag, prosodic tag and phonetic segmentation tag to provide the prosodic structure and language information for the rear-stage voice conversion and voice synthesis.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a speech recognition technology, particularly to a Chinese speech recognition system and method.
2. Description of the Related Art
The prosody-aided speech recognition technology has been an important subject in recent years. Prosody is the suprasegmental features of continuous voices, including accents, tones, pauses, intonations, rhythms, etc. Prosody is physically expressed by the track of pitches, intensities of energy, durations of voices, and pauses of speech. Prosody closely correlates with various levels of linguistic parameters, including phone, syllable, word, phrase, sentence, and even linguistic parameters of higher levels. Therefore, prosody is useful for promoting speech recognition accuracy.
Refer to FIG. 1 a block diagram schematically showing a prosodic model generator concluded from the prior arts of prosody-aided speech recognition technologies. The prosodic model generator includes a prosodic model trainer 10, a parameter extractor 12 and an artificially-labeled prosodic corpus 14. The artificially-labeled prosodic corpus 14 receives speech data, and specialists label the prosodies thereof. From the artificially-labeled prosodic corpus 14, the parameter extractor 12 extracts spectral parameters, linguistic parameters of various levels, and prosodic-acoustic parameters. According to the parameters output by the parameter extractor 12, and the prosodic clues and events found in the artificially-labeled prosodic corpus 14 (such as the pitch accents and the boundaries of intonational phrases), the prosodic model trainer 10 establishes a prosody-dependent acoustic model, a prosody-dependent linguistic model, and a prosodic model to describe the relationships between the prosodic clues of different-level linguistic parameters and the prosodic acoustic parameters thereof.
The abovementioned prior arts can only utilize few obvious prosodic clues because they lack a large-scale corpus having abundant reliable and diversified prosodic tags. Therefore, the conventional technologies can only improve the efficiency of speech recognition to a very limited extent.
Accordingly, the present invention proposes a Chinese speech recognition system and method to overcome the abovementioned problems.


According to some embodiments, an apparatus having a first sensor having a first adjustable lens and a second sensor having a second adjustable lens is disclosed. A controller is coupled to the first sensor and the second sensor. The controller is to cause the first sensor and the second sensor to operate independently in a first mode and is to cause the first motion sensor and the second motion sensor to operate interdependently in a second mode.

Many motion sensors available today are suitable primarily for security purposes. For example, when a motion sensor detects motion, an alarm may sound, or a light may turn on. Motion sensors are typically not used as a tool to measure or infer a person's daily activity.
A motion sensor with the ability to detect a patient and monitor the patient's movements, the frequency of those movements, and the habits of those movements could assist caregivers or physicians responsible for the patient.


A heating device for a field-device display module includes a heating element. The heating element is adapted to the shape of the field-device display module and is equipped such that it converts an electrical current to thermal energy. The heating element can be coupled to the field-device display module such that by the heating element the field-device display module can be heated.

During industrial production processes solids or liquids are converted in order to produce a new end product from an input product. In the chemical industry, for example, the production process may require that the input product for the production of the end product occurs in different states of aggregation.
For example, containers are alternately filled with fillings or materials are heated and reprocessed at a particular temperature. In order to be able to monitor the production process, an information about the actually prevailing state of the respective product should be available which information is as accurate as possible.
For the accurate registering of the states, in particular of fill levels or pressures in containers, measuring devices are thus employed at many positions in the production process, which can determine physical characteristics of the material.
The results of the measurements are converted for the presentation in a form that can be interpreted by a user. For the presentation of measured values, displays are used, from which a user can read off a measured result.
The reading off of the displays can depend on the external environment, and due to environmental influences the reading can be impaired such that the reading off is no longer possible.

Heating device for a field device display


The present invention teaches a TFT array substrate and a display device. The TFT array substrate disposes second fanout lines of the fanout area on a first metallic layer, and disposes first fanout lines of the fanout area on a second metallic layer. Data lines and their corresponding second fanout lines, and second fanout lines and their corresponding first fanout lines, are connected together through vias. The first metallic layer has a greater surface resistivity than that of the second metallic layer. The present invention's fanout lines corresponding to a same data line have a significantly increased total impedance, and the impedance variation of the fanout lines has a less impact. As data signals propagate to the data lines through the fanout lines, the data signals' arrival times to the data lines have little difference, thereby enhancing the display quality, more reliable manufacturing process, and lower risk for short circuit.

In the field of display technologies, flat panel display devices such as liquid crystal display (LCD) devices, due to their thin thickness, high quality, power saving, and low radiation, have gradually replaced cathode ray tube (CRT) display devices.
Existing LCD devices are usually back-lighted display devices, and include a LCD panel and a backlight module. The LCD panel usually include a color filter (CF) substrate, a thin film transistor (TFT) array substrate, and a liquid crystal layer and a sealant disposed between the two substrates. The principle behind a LCD panel is to alter the alignment of the liquid crystal molecules in the liquid crystal layer by the electrical field formed between the substrates. As such, light from the backlight module is refracted to produce pictures.
FIG. 1 is structural schematic diagram showing a conventional TFT array substrate. As illustrated, the TFT array substrate includes a substrate 100 and a metallic layer 200 disposed on the substrate 100. The TFT array substrate has an active area 110 and a fanout area 120. The metallic layer 200 includes multiple data lines 210 configured at intervals in parallel in the active area 110, and multiple fanout lines 220 configured in the fanout area 120, each connected to a data line 210. The fanout lines 220 connect the data lines 210 to an external integrated chip (IC) so that the IC may transmit data signals to the data lines 210. As shown in FIG. 1, each fanout line 220 includes a first straight segment 221, a slant segment 222, and a second straight segment 223, end-to-end sequentially connected. Each first straight segment 221 has an end connected to a corresponding data line 210, and the first straight segment 221 is extended along a same direction as the data line 210. The second straight segments 223 are configured at intervals in parallel, and are parallel to the data lines 210. The distance between two outermost data lines 210 is greater than the distance between the two outermost second straight segments 223. The slant segments 222 are of different lengths. Driven by the advancement of display technologies, the dimensions of LCD devices are getting larger. Correspondingly, for their TFT array substrate as shown in FIG. 1, the length difference between the slant segments 222 has also become more significant, causing greater variance to the impedances of the fanout lines 220. As data signals propagate to the data lines 210 through the fanout lines 220, they would arrive at different times due to the impedance differences, thereby affecting the display quality. To resolve this problem, as shown in FIG. 2, an existing solution is to add different numbers of detours 2211 along the first straight segments 221 so as to uniform the lengths and impedances of fanout lines 220 and to minimize the timing discrepancy between the data signals arriving at the data lines 210. However, limited by the current lithography technique, exposure anomaly often occurs around the detours 2211 when forming fanout lines 220 of FIG. 2, resulting in short circuit to the detours 2211. The impedances of the fanout lines 220 actually decrease and the input stability of data signals is difficult to guarantee.

WUHAN CHINA STAR OPTOELECTRONICS TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.


An indicator for use in a luminescence-optical configuration for continuous and reversible measurement of the pH of a sample within a relevant measuring range (M), whose luminescence decay time .tau. is dependent on the pH of the sample, is characterized by the following properties. The pK.sub.a value of the acidic or basic indicator is in the relevant measuring range when the indicator is in its electronic ground state (S.sub.0). The protonation rate k.sub.p of the base, or deprotonation rate k.sub.dp of the acid in the excited state (S.sub.1, X) of the indicator is lower than the decay rate k.sub.A of the excited state, and the luminescence decay times .tau..sub.S and .tau..sub.B of the acidic forms (AH*, BH.sup.+*) and the basic forms (A.sup.-*, B*) of the indicator are different from each other. If the pK.sub.a .tau. value of the indicator in its electronically excited state (S.sub.1, X) is within the relevant measuring range, the protonation rate k.sub.p of the base, or deprotonation rate k.sub.dp of the acid in the excited state (S.sub.1, X) of the indicator is higher than the decay rate k.sub.A of the excited state.

The invention relates to an indicator for use in a luminescence-optical configuration for continuous and reversible measurement of the pH of a sample within a relevant measuring range, the sample being at least in indirect contact with the indicator provided as an acid or base, and the luminescence decay time .tau. of the indicator depending on the pH of the sample, and to a sensor comprising such an indicator.

Substance of an optical fluorescence measuring arrangement for measuring the pH of a sample and optical sensor with such an indicator substance


A proof mass is suspended in a cavity in a housing. The proof mass moves along a sensing axis in response to linear acceleration. Elastic support members are connected between the proof mass and the housing and are arranged to exert a reaction force on the proof mass in response to displacement of the proof mass along the sensing axis. An optical fiber is connected between the proof mass and opposite sidewall portions of the housing such that displacement of the proof mass along the sensing axis elongates a first portion of the optical fiber and shortens another portion. An optical signal source provides a broadband optical signal input to the optical fiber. A fiber optic Bragg grating is formed in the optical fiber and arranged to reflect a portion of the optical signal. Acceleration of the proof mass modulates the wavelength of the reflected optical signal.

This invention relates generally to techniques for measuring acceleration and particularly to a fiber optic device for measuring linear acceleration.
Previous attempts to provide a fiber optic device that is sensitive to linear acceleration have involved microoptic techniques for fabricating individual components. Such techniques are labor intensive and therefore expensive.


A connector (10) includes a housing (12) with a terminal receiving cavity (22) and a wire receptacle (24) communicating with the terminal receiving cavity (22). The wire receptacle (24) includes at least one V-shaped wire support (40) for supporting a wire (50) at two circumferentially spaced positions on the wire (50). A cover (60) is mounted to the housing (12) and has at least one resiliently deflectable strain relief beam (70) that biases the wire (50) into the wire receptacle (24).

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates a connector to provide strain relief for large diameter wires, such as high current battery cables, and particularly for such wires that may be subject to variation in outer diameter.
2. Description of the Related Art
A wire includes a conductive core and an insulating coating surrounding the core. The insulation is removed near the end of the wire so that the conductive core can be connected to a terminal fitting, typically by welding, soldering or crimping. The assembly of the wire and the terminal fitting then may be mounted into a housing made of a synthetic resin or other nonconductive material. The wire, the terminal fitting and the housing form a connector that can be connected to a mating connector so that the terminal fitting of the connector is connected electrically to a mating terminal fitting in the mating connector.
Electrical connectors often are used in high vibration environments and/or in environments where forces may be exerted on the portion of the wire extending from the connector. Vibration of the connector and forces exerted on the wire can be transmitted to the welded, soldered or crimped connection between the conductive core of the wire and the terminal fitting, and can cause the electrical connection to degrade or fail. As a result, connectors that are used in a high vibration environment or in an environment where the wire may be subject to external forces typically have a strain relief feature. The strain relief feature typically involves placing one or more bends in the wire and tightly positioning the bends between rigid structures within the housing. The secure positioning of bent portions of the wire in the housing prevents or severely limits relative movement of the portion of the wire in the housing and hence eliminates or minimizes the effects of vibration or external forces on the soldered, welded or crimped connection between the conductive core of the wire and the terminal fitting.
The prior art strain relief structure described above works well on small diameter wires that can be bent easily and positioned adjacent rigid structures within the housing of the connector. However, large diameter wires, such as battery cables, are not bent easily. As result, the prior art strain relief structures that work well on small diameter wires are not well-suited for larger less pliable wires, such as high current battery cables.
Large diameter wires, such as battery cables, also are more likely to be subject to variation in outside diameter. The variations may be due to standard manufacturing tolerances or due to different manufacturing techniques used by suppliers of cables. Thus, prior art approaches for urging a wire into a specific nonlinear shape adjacent to rigid structures within the housing often will not provide the required strain relief due to variations in the outside diameter of the large diameter wire.
In view of the above, an object of the subject invention is to provide a strain relief structure that is particularly well suited for cross-sectionally large wires, such as high current battery cables.
Another object of the invention is to ensure adequate strain relief despite variations in cross-sectional dimensions of the wires or cables that extend into the housing of the connector.


A floor cleaning apparatus includes a body having a suction inlet and an exhaust outlet. A dirt collection vessel and a suction generator are both carried on the body. The suction generator moves an airstream through the suction inlet, the dirt collection vessel and the exhaust outlet. A filter drawer is carried on the body. A filter stop on the body aligns a filter in the filter drawer with an airstream port on the body as the filter drawer is moved from a fully opened toward a fully closed position.

Upright and canister vacuum cleaners equipped with a sliding filter drawer or tray to allow easy access for cleaning or changing a filter are well known in the art. An example of a vacuum cleaner equipped with a filter drawer may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 7,305,735 to Overwaag which is assigned to the assignee of this document.
One difficulty and concern with such a design relates to the integrity of the flow path through the filter in the drawer. In order to maximize filtering efficiency, any leaks around the filter in the drawer should be minimized or, better still, eliminated. Thus, proper sealing is a major concern. This is difficult to achieve with a sliding drawer.
This document discloses an apparatus and method for providing a filter drawer with a filter that may be easily accessed for cleaning or changing while also providing excellent sealing for greater cleaning efficiency.

Floor cleaning apparatus with filter drawer


One aspect of this disclosure relates to a method for creating proximity gettering sites in a silicon on insulator (SOI) wafer. In various embodiments of this method, a relaxed silicon germanium region is formed over an insulator region of the SOI to be proximate to a device region. The relaxed silicon germanium region generates defects to getter impurities from the device region. Other aspects are provided herein.

Unwanted crystalline defects and impurities can be introduced during crystal growth or subsequent wafer fabrication processes. These defects and impurities can degrade device characteristics and overall yield. Gettering has been described as a process for moving contaminants and/or defects in a semiconductor into its bulk and away from its top surface to create a denuded zone cleared from contaminants and/or defects. Preferably, devices are built in the denuded zone.
Historically, extrinsic backside gettering was used to getter silicon wafers. Various extrinsic backside gettering processes involve damaging the backside of the wafer mechanically or by implanting argon, germanium, hydrogen or other implants, or providing a gettering layer on the backside of the wafer using a phophorosilicate glass or oxide backside layer, a polysilicon backside layer, and a silicon germanium (SiGe) backside epitaxial layer. Subsequently, "intrinsic" gettering was developed, which employed oxygen precipitation and "bulk microdefects" precipitated into the bulk of the wafer after the surface was "denuded" of oxygen. The precipitation process, the gettering effects, and the electrical characterization of defects and gettering silicon wafers have been investigated. Recently, intrinsic gettering modifications have been developed, including neutron irradiation, high boron doping, nitrogen doping, and the use of magnetic fields during crystal growth.
These gettering processes depend on the diffusion of unwanted impurities over significant distances to the gettering sites. However, modern low temperature processes have small thermal budgets, and do not afford an opportunity for significant diffusion of dopants and/or unwanted impurities. Thus, it is desirable to reduce the distance between the gettering sites and the device area. It has been previously proposed to implant various impurities in proximity to the device areas, to co-implant oxygen and silicon to form a gettering layer in close proximity to the device area, to implant helium to form cavities close to the device areas which getter impurities, and to getter material in trench isolation areas in close proximity to the device areas.
However, silicon on insulator (SOI) wafers and technology pose problems for backside extrinsic gettering and intrinsic gettering because of the intervening oxide layer between the active device silicon layer and the substrate. A number of techniques have been proposed to getter silicon on insulator layers. These proposed techniques include: a front-side polysilicon layer; a phosphorous doped oxide layer or phosphorous doped silicon layer in the SOI structure; microcavities formed by implantation; scribe lines; materials in or stress caused by trenches in the SOI structure; damage introduced by hydrogen implants; phosphorous doped microcrystalline silicon layers implant damaged regions in close proximity to device areas; and a carrier substrate with nitrogen and carbon.

Gettering of silicon on insulator using relaxed silicon germanium epitaxial proximity layers


An apparatus of monitoring the bioluminescence of organism samples comprises a culture part including a plurality of plates for putting plural organism samples and capable of cultivating said plural organism samples, a monitoring part for monitoring bioluminescences of said plural organism samples, a convey means for conveying said plural plates to said monitoring part, a control part for controlling a movement of said convey means and controlling a monitoring condition of the bioluminescence of said organism sample, and a computer for record and analysis, wherein said monitoring part, control part and computer are separated from each other.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus for monitoring a bioluminescence of a biological sample, and especially relates to an apparatus for monitoring a bioluminescence of a biological sample wherein a monitoring part and a control part are separated from each other.
2. Description of Related Art
In various organisms, all genome sequences are successively determined, and the importance on a cyclopaedically functional analysis of a genome based on genome information is increasing. As an effective method of the genome functional analysis are used a DNA array method and a proteomix method. In these methods, however, it is impossible to conduct functional analysis of all genes because the detection sensitivity is low. Also, it is required to destroy a cell in these methods because an experiment is carried out by using mRNA or protein as a material.
A method of monitoring a bioluminescence in real time (Kondo et al., 1993, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, Vol. 90, p 5672-5676; Millar et al., 1992, Plant Cell, Vol. 4, p 1075-1087) is an epoch-making non-destructive measuring method capable of monitoring a gene expression in high sensitivity and accuracy without destroying a cell. This method of monitoring a bioluminescence in real time is a key method of cyclopaedically analyzing the genome function.
Heretofore, a scintillation counter used for monitoring a radiation is utilized in the monitoring of the bioluminescence. This method utilizing the scintillation counter adopts a stacker system wherein plural 96-well plates for putting a biological sample into each well are vertically stacked on a plate-setting portion of the monitoring apparatus with an exclusive guide. That is, according to this method, when plant-based biological samples requiring a light for their growing are monitored, plates including the sample and transparent plates including no sample are stacked alternately and a light is applied from their side faces (Strayer et al., 2000, Science, Vol. 289, p 768-771).
As this method is further explained, two stackers are first provided, and the plates including the sample and the transparent plates including no sample are alternately stacked in one of the stackers as previously mentioned and the other stacker is kept at an empty state containing no plate. In the monitoring of the luminescence form the plant-based biological samples requiring a light for their growing, a light is irradiated from their side faces, whereby the light is irradiated to the plate to be tested from a space formed between the transparent plates.
The monitoring is carried out by taking out a bottom plate from the stacked plates and feeding into a measuring dark-room, and the plate after the monitoring is moved into a bottom of the other stacker, and then the monitoring of a newly bottom plate in the stacked plates of the stacker is carried out. After the monitoring of all plates is completed, these plates are taken out from the bottom of the stacker containing the measured plates and returned to the stacker having no plates to be tested in turn to render into a state prior to the monitoring. The monitoring is carried out by repeating the above procedure. Since a temperature is raised by the light source near to the plates, the problem of raising the temperature is somewhat mitigated by blowing air to the batch of the plates stacked through a fan.
In the bioluminescence monitoring of blue-green bacterium, a large scale apparatus of monitoring the bioluminescence is developed by Kondo and Ishiura, whereby a fully automatic monitoring of the bioluminescence on a large number of test samples is attained at a time (Kondo et al., 1994, Journal of Bacteriology, Vol. 176, p 1881-1885; Kondo et al., 1994, Science, Vol. 266, p 1233-1236). In this apparatus, since a chilled CCD camera is used for monitoring the bioluminescence, the monitoring sensitivity is low as compared with the use of the scintillation counter.
In the above method using the scintillation counter, however, it has been confirmed that an amount of light irradiated to each plate and an amount of light irradiated into each well within the plate are very non-uniform and the cultivation becomes non-uniform and hence a large scattering is caused in the monitored result. Also, it has been confirmed that since it is necessary to approach the light source to the sample for ensuring the amount of the light required for the growth, water included in the material to be tested is dewed in an inside of a seal attached to the plate by heat generated from the light source to largely scatter the monitored result. Further, it has been confirmed that the comparison and investigation of data every experience are not easy because the monitoring number per unit time changes as the number of the plates to be tested changes.
The apparatus for monitoring the bioluminescence of the samples is especially adaptable to a method for monitoring the bioluminescence in real time wherein the variation of the gene expression in a living cell of an organism incorporated with an emission gene is continuously monitored. This real-time method is an experiment method considerably effective for cyclopaedically separating a mutant related to the control of expression of any key gene, which is a powerful card for a cyclopaedical genome function analysis in the post-genomic era. Up to now, however, there is not developed an apparatus utilizing the merits of the real-time method to the utmost to cope with the large-scale monitoring.
Although the scintillation counter is generally used in the monitoring of the luminescence of organism samples, it is difficult to monitor plant-based organism samples under uniform growth cultivating conditions (especially, the light condition) because the light is required for the growth.
In the method of combining the sample cultivating and transferring apparatus and the scintillation counter, a large space is required for setting the apparatus and the cost becomes high. Moreover, since a control computer included in the scintillation counter is weak to a high temperature, the monitoring could be only carried out under a temperature environment of 15-35° C.

Apparatus for monitoring bioluminescence of biological samples

National University Corporation Nagoya University


An electro-optic modulator is disclosed in the form of a compound waveguide device having a channel waveguide in optical proximity to an elongate waveguide propagating an optical signal therein. The channel waveguide includes a coupling surface through which optical energy is evanescently coupled to or from the optical signal propagating in the elongate waveguide. The channel waveguide is shaped to confine distribution of the optical energy therein along axes transverse to the axis of propagation of the optical energy. Transverse diffraction of the optical energy within the channel waveguide is thereby limited. The channel waveguide is formed from an electro-optically active material, and modulation of the optical signal propagating in the elongate waveguide is effected using the evanescent coupling effect between the two waveguides. In one embodiment, the elongate waveguide is a side-polished fiber-optic waveguide.

A compound waveguide device contains a first optical waveguide, and a second optical waveguide placed in optical proximity to at least a portion of the first waveguide. The second waveguide (possibly electro-optically tunable), placed in optical proximity to the first waveguide, can be used for the coupling of optical energy, within a selectable spectral band, from the first waveguide to the second. The coupling effect between the first and second waveguides can be utilized in a variety of optical signal processing applications.
For example, in some filtering applications, efficient recollection of the coupled optical energy for further use (e.g., in signal detection or demodulation, source stabilization feedback) is required. Multiple wavelength bands may be transmitted through the first waveguide, in a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) system, in which case the second waveguide can be used as a filter to extract information carried in one of the bands. If an electro-optic material (e.g., LiNbO.sub.3) is used to form the second waveguide, then the device can be configured as an active, electro-optically tunable filter. In another embodiment, the geometric and physical properties of the second waveguide itself may result in a useful passive filter inherently tuned to a particular wavelength of interest.
In another example, if an electro-optic material is used to form the second waveguide, the device can be configured as an intensity modulator for a fixed wavelength signal transmitted through the first waveguide. By applying an electric field to the second waveguide using, for example, a suitable high-speed electrode pattern, a refractive index change is induced in the second waveguide and a corresponding shift in the spectral response results. The transmitted intensity of the signal in the first waveguide can therefore be modulated by the shifting spectral response, resulting in a modulator which can operate up to microwave frequencies.
Depending upon the particular application, different coupling characteristics between the waveguides are required. However, certain improvements to these characteristics are commonly desired in many applications. Diffractive losses in the second waveguide itself, while in certain applications useful, in others may adversely affect the shape of the spectral response of the device. For example, eliminating diffractive losses is often desirable because recollection efficiency in a signal detection or demodulation device can be thereby improved.
The operation of the device is determined by its intrinsic spectral response and the electric field applied to the second, electro-optically tunable waveguide. In a filtering context, sharpening the coupling resonance, in either a bandpass or bandstop configuration, improves the spectral selectivity of the device. In a modulation context, steepening the edge of the coupling resonance can increase a modulation of an optical carrier transmission for a given amount of device tuning about the carrier wavelength. Therefore, for a given transmission modulation, steepening the coupling resonance lowers the operating voltage of the device. In either context, altering the geometry of the second, electro-optically tunable waveguide to increase the applied electric field and its distribution therein increases device tunability, and thereby improves its performance.
Therefore, what is required, is a compound waveguide device with improved tunability and which offers other improvements to known devices. In the filter context, preventing unnecessary diffractive losses in the second waveguide improves spectral selectivity and secondary coupling. In the modulator context, steepening the resonance edge increases device responsivity which allows for lower drive voltages.

Electro-optic compound waveguide intensity modular and method using same


A uniform light source having a substrate for providing structural and functional support to the assembly. A bottom reflector provided on the substrate. A plurality of solid state light sources provided in an opening of the bottom reflector for providing a point light source. A plurality of light films and having light redirecting areas provided between the plurality of solid state light sources for redirecting and spreading the point light source to a uniform plane of light; a joining clip comprising a top capping portion and a bottom support portion, the bottom support portion being aligned perpendicular to the top capping portion and having a height sufficient to house the plurality of light films. A top diffuser for diffusing the uniform plane of light. The plurality of light films has a thickness between 0.1 mm to 1.0 mm. In addition, the joining clip further comprises a light diffusion means.

Transmissive Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) panels offer a compact, lightweight alternative to other types of displays, but require some type of backlight illumination to provide the light for modulation. Backlight illumination for LCD and similar displays is typically provided by a light-providing surface that is positioned behind the LCD panel, relative to the viewer, and that redirects light from one or more light sources through the LCD panel. One exemplary type of light-providing surface is a Light Guiding Plate (LGP). The LGP acts as a waveguide, using Total Internal Reflection (TIR) for redirecting incident light that it receives from one or more sources that are positioned along its side edges. Some type of surface featuring is provided on the LGP in order to extract internally reflected light and redirect this light toward the display panel. One example of an illumination apparatus using an LGP is given in U.S. Pat. No. 5,999,685 entitled "LIGHT GUIDE PLATE AND SURFACE LIGHT SOURCE USING THE LIGHT GUIDE PLATE" to Goto et al.
Among drawbacks with solutions such as that proposed in the Goto et al. disclosure are the relative thickness and overall bulk of the conventional light guide plate. Conventional LGPs often exceed the thickness of the LCD panel itself. With the advent of larger displays such as LCD TV, and with the development of more compact solid-state light sources, such as Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs), there is a need for an LGP solution that offers a thinner profile, weighs less, and is more flexible than existing designs. As displays continue to grow larger in scale and with increased use of more flexible substrates, there is growing demand for a more flexible LGP, with thickness approaching 1 mm.
A number of solutions have been proposed for LGP devices that are better suited to smaller and more flexible displays. However, the solutions proposed thus far have inherent drawbacks that limit their utility or make them difficult to manufacture. For example, various types of light-extracting features formed in the LGP surface have been proposed. However, the geometrical profile of many of the proposed light-extracting features require manufacturing methods such as injection molding or hot compression molding. These fabrication methods may work well with thicker materials, but prove increasingly difficult and impractical as LGP thickness decreases. For example, a number of proposed solutions require surface light-extraction features that have 90-degree vertical walls. Sharp angles at this scale can be very difficult to fabricate, using any method, with known plastic materials at the needed size. Still others require features having a relatively high height:width aspect ratio, features difficult to fabricate for similar reasons. Although such structures may work well in theory and although their fabrication may be possible, the manufacturing problems they present make many of the proposed designs impractical for mass production. Little attention seems to have been paid to how an LGP having light-extraction features with sharply-angled side-walls can be economically mass produced.
Further, LCD TVs that use LEDs as a light source commonly use thick LGP with top emitting LEDs arranged around the perimeter of the LGP. The top emitting LEDs, which are arranged around the perimeter of the LGP are typically located under the bezel. The bezel serves to cover and absorb the unwanted LED generated light not coupled into the LGP/LED interface. Thus the uncoupled LED generated light is not used to illuminate the LCD and is wasted.
While the use of LED as a lighting source for a LC panel allows the LED to be globally dimmed in registration with the image content to reduce overall power consumption for LCD TV, these edge-lit LED TVs typically are not capable of being locally dynamically dimmed because of the perimeter positioning of the LEDs. Local dimming of LEDs has been shown to further reduce the overall power consumption of LED illuminated LCD TV compared to global dimming as small groups of LED can be dimmed in registration with the image content. Further local dimming also been shown to significantly improve the contrast ratio of the displayed image compared to global dimming.
Thus, it is recognized that there is a need for light guiding surface solutions that allow the use of flexible materials, that can be produced with a relatively thin dimensional profile, that are designed for high-volume manufacture and can be local dimmed.

Backlight illumination assembly having a joining clip with diffusion means


The present disclosure discloses a method and an apparatus for distinguishing objects. The method includes: obtaining a plurality of object groups displayed in an image, each object group including at least one target object, and a same resource being configured for target objects in different object groups; setting different mark values for the plurality of object groups, target objects in a same object group having a same mark value; and separately performing pixel correction on pixels of the target objects in each object group according to the mark value of each object group, pixels of the target objects having different mark values being corrected to have different display attributes.

In existing technology, when a plurality of objects that simultaneously appear in an image need to be distinguished from each other, a commonly used method is to configure different resources for different object groups, so that one or more different objects in different object groups have different display features, thereby facilitating recognition by users. For example, in the game Counter-Strike, during shooting, a user needs to distinguish whether target objects displayed in a display area are teammates or enemies. After the user chooses to be a terrorist or a counter-terrorist, the game prompts the user to choose corresponding clothes or equips the user with clothes corresponding to the chosen role. It can be learned that during gaming, players with two different roles wear different clothes. The user determines whether objects are teammates or enemies according to the clothes on the objects that appear in the display area and further determines whether to shoot the objects.
However, in the process of distinguishing objects in an image by using the foregoing method, the following problems exist:
(1) When the existing technology is used, a user distinguishes between target objects, resulting in that objects in different object groups cannot use a same set of resources, and consequently, the reusability of resources is relatively low. When objects in a plurality of object groups all need to use a same set of resources, it is difficult to achieve coordination.
(2) When a target object appears at a relatively far location in the view angle of a user, the user can hardly recognize specific attributes of the target object.
Thus, there needs an effective solution to the problem of low resource reusability in the existing technology due to that different resources need to be configured for different target objects in an image to distinguish the different target objects.

Method and apparatus for distinguishing between objects

TENCENT TECHNOLOGY (SHENZHEN) COMPANY LIMITED


A method of printing multiple swaths with a hand-operated printer having a target sight includes printing at least one alignment mark for a subsequent print swath during a printing of a current print swath; and aligning the target sight with the alignment mark prior to beginning printing of the subsequent print swath.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hand-operated printer, and, more particularly, to a method of printing multiple swaths with a hand-operated printer.
2. Description of the Related Art
A hand-operated printer is a printer that typically does not include a drive mechanism for positioning a printhead relative to the print medium, such as paper. An optical encoder typically is used to provide position feedback of relative motion between the hand-operated printer and the print medium. Thus, the hand-operated printer only senses movement along one axis and is designed to print a single swath having a height corresponding to the height of the printhead. It has not been practical to use such a printer for printing paragraphs of text, or graphics, such as for example, maps.

Alignment method for hand-operated printer


The structure and method which improves the film thickness uniformity or thickness control when using magnetron sputtering by adjusting the distance between the magnetron or a portion of the magnetron and the sputtering target to provide an improvement in the film thickness uniformity. Shimmed rails, contoured rails, contoured surfaces, cam plates, and cam plate control followers are utilized to achieve an improvement in film thickness uniformity or thickness control due to anomalies in magnetic field as a magnetron assembly moves back and forth when sputtering substrates (utilized primarily for rectangularly shaped substrates).

Sputtering describes a number of physical techniques commonly used in, for example, the semiconductor industry for the deposition of thin films of various metals such as aluminum, aluminum alloys, refractory metal suicides, gold, copper, titanium, titanium-tungsten, tungsten, molybdenum, tantalum and less commonly silicon dioxide and silicon on an item (a substrate), for example a substrate or glass plate being processed. In general, the techniques involve producing a gas plasma of ionized inert gas "particles" (atoms or molecules) by using an electrical field in an evacuated chamber. The ionized particles are then directed toward a "target" and collide with it. As a result of the collisions, free atoms or neutral or ionized groups of atoms of the target material are released from the surface of the target, essentially liberating target material are released from the surface of the target, essentially liberating atomic-level particles from the target material. Many of the free particles which escape the target surface condense and form (deposit) a thin film on the surface of the object (e.g. wafer, substrate) being processed, which is located a relatively short distance from the target.
One common sputtering technique is magnetron sputtering. When processing substrates using magnetron sputtering, sputtering action is concentrated in the region of the magnetic field on the target surface so that sputtering occurs at a higher rate and at a lower process pressure than possible without the use of magnets. The target itself is electrically biased with respect to the substrate and chamber, and functions as a cathode. Objectives in engineering the cathode and its associated magnetic field source include uniform erosion of the target and uniform deposition of pure target material on the substrate being processed.
If, during sputtering, magnets generating a magnetic field are stationary at a location, then continuous sputtering consumes a disproportionate fraction of the sputtering target thickness at that location quickly and generates hot spots at the locations of sputtering. Therefore magnets are continuously moved across the back side of the target in a path designed to cause uniform utilization of the target's surface and sputter deposit a correspondingly uniform film thickness on the substrate being processed. Sputtering a target creates a deposition pattern on the substrate which generally matches the utilization (erosion) pattern on the target surface.
To avoid contamination of the processing chamber and substrate processed therein, sputtering is stopped before the non-uniform sputtering wear pattern has consumed the full thickness of the target material at any point. If any point on the plate behind the target were to be reached, sputtering of the target backing plate material (often copper) would occur, contaminating the vacuum chamber and the substrate being processed with the target backing material. Because of the non-uniform pattern of target utilization, sputtering is usually stopped when a large percentage of the target remains.
As the target erodes, the distance between the target surface (which is eroding away) and the substrate being sputtered is slowly increasing. The change in the distance between the target surface and the substrate being sputtered creates a change in the qualities of the sputtered material deposited and its uniformity. When material is deposited on large areas such as glass plates, variations in the thickness of deposited sputtered material are measurable and, may be unacceptable.
In generating the gas plasma and creating ion streams impacting on the cathode, considerable energy is supplied. This energy must be dissipated to avoid melting or nearly melting the structures and components involved. A common technique used for cooling sputtering targets is to pass water or other cooling liquid through a fixed internal passage of the sputtering target. Another cooling technique which is commonly used is to expose a back side of a target to a cooling bath. Cooling liquid circulating through the bath container assists in controlling the temperature of the back of the target assembly. A magnet assembly (magnetron) located on the back side of the target with a backside cooling bath moves within the liquid of the cooling bath.
FIGS. 1, 2, and 3 show a prior art sputtering chamber 50 in which a rectangular substrate 64 (shown in dashed lines in FIG. 1) is supported on a pedestal 52. A target assembly 58, consisting of a target backing plate 56 and a target 54 having a front face facing the pedestal 52, covers the upper flange of the processing chamber sealing it. On the side of the target assembly opposite from the pedestal 52 a magnetron chamber 60 encloses a magnetron assembly 62. The magnetron chamber 60 can be made vacuum tight to reduce the differential pressure across the target assembly 58 (with cooling fluid being routed through the target assembly), or it can be filled with cooling liquid to provide a cooling bath in contact with the back side of the target assembly 58. To enhance sputtering of a rectangular shaped substrate 64 (generally matching the shape of the outside of the chamber 50) the magnetron assembly 62 is a linear bar with rounded ends. The magnetron assembly 62 moves in a horizontal, back and forth (reciprocal) pattern within the magnetron chamber 62 as shown in by the arrows 68. The magnetron assembly passes through the magnetron chamber 62 and to the dashed outline of the magnetron assembly 62a. The outline of the area covered by magnetron movement is shown by the dashed line 66.
The magnetron assembly 62 as shown in FIG. 3 runs parallel to the target assembly 58 along one of a range of elevations between the low and high extremes (e.g., 96, 98), which are greatly exaggerated in this figure. The particular elevation (e.g., 96, 98) is dependent on the desired distance 92 from the front face of the target 54, which in turn determines the degree of sputtering enhancement desired for a particular process chamber pressure and sputtering process being used.
A conceptualized illustration of the magnetic field present around the strong Neodymium Boron Iron magnets used in the magnetron assembly is shown in the cross section of FIG. 4. The positive poles 72, 74, 76, 78 of the magnets shown, e.g., 70, are on the top (away from the sputtering target) in the outside loop 84 (FIG. 1) of permanent magnets and on the bottom (close to the sputtering target) in the inside loop 82 (FIG. 1), although the polarities may be reversed. A magnet backing plate 80 bridges the magnetic field on the top side of the magnetron thus preventing the magnetic field from extending up from the top side of magnetron assembly. In contrast, the magnetic field on the bottom side between adjacent magnets is conceptualized by the loops 86 showing a diminishing magnetic field strength farther down from the magnetron assembly 62. The loops of the magnetic field lines 86, portray a comparatively strong magnetic field in the loop 88 adjacent to the magnets, and drop off in the magnetic field strength rapidly as a function of the distance to a comparatively weakened magnetic field strength at the loop 90 farthest from the magnets. (The loops show an approximation of the diminution of the magnet field strength with distance). Any vertical movement of the magnetron assembly 62 that increases the distance between the front face of the target and the magnetron assembly 62 from the distance 92 (FIG. 3) to the distance 94 (FIG. 5), reduces the magnetic field strength at the surface of the target facing the pedestal 52 by a factor of approximately 5, relative to the range of field strength loops shown in FIG. 4.
FIG. 6 shows a target erosion profile for a target of 6061 Al in 2000 kilowatt hour power range. The contours shown by the plot show a generally uniform utilization of the target with a slight increase in erosion near the ends of the profile (a dwell location). The pattern observable from at the dwell locations corresponds to the shape of the magnet field emanating from magnetron assembly. The target erosion profile as shown here is related to the rate of deposition and film thickness uniformity or thickness control on a substrate being sputtered located opposite such a target (areas showing greater erosion on the target result in areas having greater deposition on the substrate). In this particular instance, there are two areas of relatively high erosion, one at the upper right corner 242 and the other at lower left hand corner 244 of FIG. 6, which produce corresponding deposition thickness anomalies on the substrate being sputtered.
The current specifications for target film thickness uniformity (even for large plates, such as the 50 by 60 centimeter plate shown in FIG. 6) is 5% or better. The anomalies of high erosion at the corners of the target as shown by the regions 242, 244 cause great concern in meeting the specification as they distort the film thickness uniformity so that a film thickness uniformity of only approximately 7% can be achieved. To improve uniformity the excessive erosion in the two regions 242, 244 must be reduced or eliminated so that the specification for film thickness uniformity can be met.
The observation of the high erosion in the corners has initiated a great deal of scrutiny without an identification of its true source. The positioning of an array of permanent magnets in the magnetron assembly assures a uniform magnetic field throughout the magnetron assembly. The general uniformity of the magnet field emanating from the magnetron is confirmed by the generally uniform erosion profile across the center of face of the target. Speculation about the source of the reason for the anomaly in the corners included research to determine whether a source of electrical or magnetic field anomalies could be identified. None has been identified.
FIG. 7 is a plot representing the film thickness on the surface of a substrate. It confirms the uniformity of the film thickness on the surface of a rectangular substrate. This plot shows an approximately mirror image correlation with the target erosion profile of FIG. 6.
In the field of thin film deposition, a size of substrates is becoming larger and larger since there is increasing need for larger size LCD screen. For example, current substrate size for production is up to 400 mm.times.500 mm, however, the size will be expanded up to 600 mm.times.700 mm or larger in the future.
One of the most difficult tasks in thin film deposition is how to achieve uniform deposition over a substrate. This shortcoming becomes the dominant factor preventing the economical production of larger and larger LCD screens.
The shortcomings in film thickness uniformity or thickness control of the existing sputtering target systems as described above continue to inhibit the wide use of sputtering as an efficient and cost-effective means for applying surface coatings on large substrates.

Non-planar magnet tracking during magnetron sputtering