The apparatus and method of the disclosure relate to data entry and menu selection. Applications include: (a) data entry for ideographic languages, including Chinese, Japanese and Korean; (b) fast food ordering; (c) correction of documents generated by optical character recognition; and (d) computer access and speech synthesis by persons temporarily or permanently lacking normal motor capabilities. In a preferred embodiment, each option of a menu is associated respectively with a selectable region displayed adjacent an edge of a display, forming a perimeter menu and leaving a region in the center of the perimeter menu for the output of an application program. Selectable regions may be on the display, outside the display, or both. A menu option may be selected by clicking on the associated selectable region, by dwelling on it for a selection threshold period or by a cursor path toward the selectable region, or by a combination thereof. Remaining dwell time required to select a selectable region is preferably indicated by the brightness of the selectable region. Submenus of a perimeter menu may also be perimeter menus and the location of a submenu option may be foretold by the appearance of its parent menu option. Menu options may be ideographs sharing a sound, a structure or another characteristic. Ideographs, which may be homophones of one another, may be associated with colored indicating regions and selection of an ideograph may be made by speaking the name of the associated color.

Many persons suffer from various neurogenic muscular disorders, such as Cerebral Palsy ("CP"), Traumatic Brain Injury, Spinal Cord Injury, Muscular Dystrophy, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Multiple Sclerosis. These conditions can result in a reduced ability to voluntarily control or prevent the movement of parts of the body, including the head, limbs and digits, muscle stiffness, weakness, limited range of motion, abnormal posture, involuntary muscle tremors, involuntary muscle activity causing involuntary motion, impaired ability to voluntarily stop motion, impaired ability to coordinate muscle activity, and/or impaired ability to sense the position of a part of the body. Any one of these symptoms may impair an affected individual's fine motor control. Moreover, while some individuals affected by a neuromuscular disorder may be able to exercise fine motor control with enormous effort, the struggle to do so often fatigues the individual, limiting the period of time the individual is capable or comfortable performing the fine motor control task.
Neuromuscular disorders are often systemic in effect, impairing an individual's ability to operate prosthetic devices, such as a wheelchair, and to perform the activities of daily life, such as speaking, walking and operating household appliances. Speech is frequently affected since the mechanics of producing speech require coordination of many muscle groups—the muscles of the diaphragm which push air over the vocal cords, the muscles of the larynx, jaws, tongue and lips. The inability to use or coordinate these muscle groups may result in impaired speech. Depending upon the degree of impairment, speech may be totally absent, present but impaired to the point of unintelligibility, or intelligible on the whole but with occasional unintelligible words. The ability to walk is often affected since walking requires coordination and voluntary control of many muscle groups. Furthermore, impaired fine motor control may prevent or impede an individuals from effectively operating household appliances or computer input devices.
Devices are available which produce speech, control appliances and facilitate computer access for some persons having neuromuscular disorders ("NMD operators"). Devices which produce speech for individuals whose own speech is impaired, called Augmentative and Alternative Communication ("AAC") devices, allow the operator to select words or phrases by spelling the words, by specifying an abbreviation for the phrase or by selecting a sequence of symbols, and then speak the selected words or phrases using an electronic speech synthesizer. However, due to the systemic nature of neuromuscular disorders, NMD operators are often unable to efficiently use a standard keyboard and mouse. For example, an NMD operator who is unable to stop the movement of a limb with precision, when attempting to use a keyboard or mouse, may move his arm toward the target key or move the cursor toward the target object on the display but overshoot the target. If he has involuntary tremors and cannot hold a limb still, then, when attempting to use a keyboard, he may hit keys adjacent to his target key. If he has involuntary motion moving left to right, then, when attempting to use a keyboard, he may have difficulty accessing an intended key on the right side of the keyboard.
The benefits of interfacing an NMD operator to a general purpose computer so that he may control the computer and devices attached to it ("computer access") are both numerous, because many of the problems faced by the disabled are susceptible to a computer-driven solution, and profound, because of the psychological deprivation occasioned by a severe physical disability. The benefits potentially obtained through computer access for individuals affected by neuromuscular disorders include:                a. Speech synthesis. A computer connected to a speech synthesizer enables an NMD operator with impaired speech to direct the computer to speak for him        b. Device control. A user who is physically unable to operate a household appliance, for example, a television, video cassette recorder, compact disc player, radio, alarm clock, telephone, light, thermostat, dimmer or power switch, may be able to control the appliance via a computer equipped with an interface he can control.        c. Access to general purpose computer applications. NMD operators may make use of the same general purpose computer application programs ("applications") as able-bodied users, including applications for word processing, database, computer-aided instruction, access to literature accessible via computer, spreadsheet, time management and computer utilities.        d. Enhanced self-esteem and peer approval. Adolescents with CP are obviously different from their peers. They are often surrounded by non-normative assistive technology, e.g. wheelchair or walker, special school bus equipped with a chair lift, stair lift, standing aid, AAC device, feeding apparatus, bath seat, toiletting apparatus, etc. In addition, they may drool, lacking the ability to coordinate lip closure with swallowing. Nonetheless they are adolescents and need peer approval to support them in their maturation from dependent children to independent adults. Today, demonstrated facility with a computer is an emblem of intelligence among adolescents, so computer use provides adolescents the opportunity to prove their intelligence and thus potentially rewards NMD operators with both self-esteem and peer approval.        e. Privacy. Some severely disabled school-aged children require nearly constant physical assistance to transfer them to and from bed, to feed them, help them with toiletting and personal hygiene, etc. Because they are constantly attended, all their mistakes in class or when doing homework are known to their attendant, often a family member. They do not have the opportunity to make mistakes in private. Computer use, if it can be done without assistance, affords the NMD operator the opportunity to avoid the embarrassment of showing their failings to their attendant.        f. Expanded personal interaction. Some severely disabled individuals, e.g. quadriplegics, are essentially incarcerated by their disability. They interact with their family or their caretakers, depending upon whether they live at home or in an institution. Their circle of friends is often very small. Using a computer and a modem, they can expand their circle of friends to include the tens of thousands of people who periodically connect to worldwide electronic networks to trade information on topics of mutual interest. Moreover, the interaction via present computer networks is mostly textual; there is no voice or visual interaction between users. Since messages are customarily composed and read off-line to minimize connect time charges, no one even knows how long it took the sender to enter the text. Electronic networks thus afford the disabled user an opportunity to relate to others on an equal footing, not as a disabled person to his able-bodied peers, something many NMD operators dearly want to do but were never able to.
NMD operators vary widely in their motor capabilities. Even individuals having the same medical diagnosis may require completely different technologies for computer access. Many NMD operators are able to use an oversize keyboard, a device having a pressure-sensitive surface divided into squares, each square associated with a letter of the alphabet. The squares may be sized to match the operator's abilities, but typically each square is two inches on either side. NMD operators who are unable to efficiently use an oversize keyboard may use another conventional computer access solution, called an "on-screen keyboard", which, as illustrated in FIG. 1, is a picture of keyboard drawn on a computer display (1101). The operator selects a letter by pointing to that letter's key image on the display with a pointing device ("pointer"), then indicating that he has reached his target either by operating a switch, a process called selection by click, or by maintaining the location indicated by the pointer ("dwelling") on the key image for a predetermined period of time (the "selection threshold"), a process called selection by dwell. Switch operation includes, but is not limited to, each of the following: opening the switch, closing the switch, opening the switch multiple times within a predetermined period, and closing the switch multiple times within a predetermined period. A program executing on the computer determines which letter the operator has selected and processes the letter or passes it to some other application program which processes the letter as if it came from a true keyboard.
Conventional pointing devices include a mouse, trackball, joystick (which may be integrated into a keyboard, e.g. TrackPoint II®), stylus and graphics tablet, lightpen, thumb wheel, touch screen, touch panel, head pointer, occulometer, intraoral pointer and eye tracker. They may be active, e.g. a lightpen that emits an infrared beam, or passive, e.g. an eye tracker that uses images of an individual's eyes to determine where his eyes are focusing. Conventional switches include a button on the mouse, a switch in the tip of the stylus actuated by pressure or the release of pressure, a switch mounted on the user's wheelchair operated by a turn of the head to or the switch below a keyboard key.
Dwell time may be continuous or discontinuous depending upon the operator's motor capabilities. In continuous dwelling, if the operator moves the cursor from one key image to another region of the display, the time accumulated on the key image is discarded so that if the operator returns to that key image he must dwell on it for the full selection threshold to select it. Discontinuous dwelling, by contrast, compensates for involuntary tremors which pull the operator off the desired key image. Accumulated dwell time on a key image is remembered, so that on return to a key image, the operator need only dwell for a period equal to the difference between the selection threshold and the previously accumulated dwell time for that key image. Accumulated dwell time is reset to zero for all key images following the selection of any one key image. Conventional on-screen keyboards do not indicate to the operator the dwell time associated with any key image.
There may be a single selection threshold period for all key images or each key image may be associated with its own selection threshold period. In the latter case, keys associated with shorter selection threshold periods are easier to select than keys associated with longer selection threshold periods.
As was mentioned earlier, computer access permits an NMD operator to run a variety of applications. One such application is speech synthesis. In a computer-based speech synthesis system, a computer system displaying an on-screen keyboard is connected to a speech synthesizer. The operator spells the desired word or words using the on-screen keyboard. These are then spoken by the speech synthesizer. Another application of the on-screen keyboard is word processing. FIG. 2 illustrates an example of a combined display of an on-screen keyboard and a word processing application program. The on-screen keyboard (0201) is shown on the lower portion of a display connected to a computer system (not shown) which also executes the word processing application program whose output (0203) appears on the upper portion of the display. Letters selected by the operator are input to the word processing application program.
Due to impaired fine motor control, many NMD operators have difficulty selecting a key image by click or by dwell and this difficulty increases as the size of the key image decreases. FIG. 1 shows an on-screen keyboard containing 81 total keys including 26 alphabetic keys, 10 numeric keys, 12 function keys, 4 arrow keys and 29 special purpose keys. Drawing this many key images on a display restricts the size of each key image making each very difficult for many NMD operators to select.
When a display is shared between application program output (0203) and an on-screen keyboard (0201), as is the display shown in FIG. 2, the size of each key image must be reduced from its size in FIG. 1 to allow space for the application program output. Thus, as more display space is allotted to application program output, the key images become more difficult for an NMD operator to select.
Many NMD operators have difficulty using the conventional dwell selectable on-screen keyboard because they cannot maintain a steady pointer position. The body member with which they control the pointer may move slightly ("drift") when they want it to remain still. One approach to this problem is a variation of the on-screen keyboard, depicted in FIGS. 3, 4 and 5 and called a quaternary on-screen keyboard ("quaternary keyboard"). The quaternary keyboard provides for larger key images. The alphabet is divided into four groups of letters, each displayed in one of the four quadrants (1302), (1304), (1306) and (1308) of the display, as shown in FIG. 3. The operator selects one of the four groups by, for example, pointing to and dwelling on one quadrant of the display. The selected group is then exploded into four subgroups, each displayed in one quadrant of the display, as shown in FIG. 4. Once more the operator selects one of the four. The selected group is exploded into four letters and each letter displayed in one quadrant of the display, as shown in FIG. 5. The operator again selects one of the four. This letter is then input to an application program (not shown).
The quaternary keyboard illustrates the use of a menu hierarchy in computer access. Each of the four groups of letters (1302), (1304), (1306) and (1308) is a menu option. Each of these menu options is itself a menu which includes other menu options. A menu hierarchy exists if at least one of a menu's menu options is itself a menu. Hereinafter, a menu accessed from another menu may be called a submenu, and the options of the submenu may be called submenu options. If a menu hierarchy is narrow and deep, many selections are required to make the desired choice. If a menu hierarchy is broad and shallow, each layer is composed of many menu options.
The quaternary keyboard greatly expands the size of a single key image and thus accommodates certain NMD operators with drift or involuntary tremors. The cost of this adjustment is high Instead of selecting a letter with one pointing motion and dwelling for one selection threshold, the quaternary keyboard requires three pointing motions and dwelling for three selection thresholds. Thus the operator's productivity is dramatically reduced from the standard on-screen keyboard depicted in FIG. 1.
The computer access advantage gained from the quaternary keyboard is greatest when the quaternary keyboard occupies the entire display. In this configuration the size of each of the four active display regions is maximized, making them easier to hit and dwell on for the operator. However, this configuration allows no room on the display for the output of the application program being run by the operator, the reason he is sitting at the computer in the first place. This does not prevent the on-screen keyboard from passing letters to the application program since an application program need not be visible to be active, but it does prevent the operator from seeing what the application program has to show him. The more of the application program output that is displayed, the smaller the on-screen keyboard, the smaller each active region of the on-screen keyboard and the more difficult access becomes. FIG. 6 illustrates a display combining a quaternary keyboard and output from two application programs.
Another conventional structure for selecting of a menu option from a menu is a pie menu A pie menu is an opaque region on a display divided into selectable slices, each slice associated with a menu option. The pie menu suffers some of the drawbacks discussed above, particularly that, while displayed the pie menu occupies more space than a linear menu and obscures much of the output of the operator's application program. For illustrations and a discussion of pie menus, see Callahan, Jack et. al., "An Empirical Comparison of Pie vs. Linear Menus", Computer Science Technical Report Series, CS-TR-1919, University of Maryland, College Park, Md., September 1987.
NMD operators who cannot effectively use a conventional keyboard or a pointing device may use a computer access method called "joystick patterns". FIG. 7 depicts a conventional joystick pattern device. The device (1602) is connected to a joystick and to a computer. The operator pushes the joystick to the top, bottom, left, right, top left corner, top right corner, lower left corner or lower right corner, closing one of eight switch contacts within the joystick housing. That switch position is then indicated on the display (1604). A sequence of consecutive of switch closures encodes a letter or other programmed output that the device (1602) displays on an LCD display (1606) and sends to the connected computer, simulating keyboard input.
The conventional joystick pattern device is ill-suited for many NMD operators. The involuntary tremors common some neuromuscular disorders may result in unintended switch closures. In addition, the device does not provide an indication that the operator is moving a body member in an unintended direction until switch closure occurs. For example, an operator with CP who intends to move the joystick the right but actually moves it to the upper right receives no indication from the device, prior to switch closure, that he's not on target. Moreover, the device requires that the operator memorize the encoding of each letter or other output since there's no indication on the display (1606) which sequence encodes which letter. Further, the device provides no support for head pointing, although the head is often the best controlled part of an NMD operator's body.
NMD operators who cannot effectively use either a conventional keyboard or a pointing device but can reliably actuate a switch may use a computer access method called "scanning", which is subdivided by cursor control technique into three types of scanning: automatic, directed and step. In automatic scanning all the operators' options, for example, the letters of the alphabet, appear on either a static or dynamic display (depending upon the implementation), organized in rows and columns. At the scanning interval, usually about one second, a cursor moves from one row to the next. When the cursor indicates the row containing the letter the operator wants, he closes a switch. The machine now moves the cursor from one letter to the next within the selected row until the operator closes the switch again. The operator has now selected one letter. In directed scanning, like automatic scanning, the cursor moves at the frequency determined by the scanning interval, however, it moves only when the switch is closed. To select an option, such as a row or a letter in a row, the operator opens the switch while the cursor indicates the desired option. In step scanning, the cursor moves with each switch activation.
As one can well imagine, writing a sentence via any of these scanning techniques is an extremely slow process, since selecting a single letter may take many seconds.
Problems of computer access cascade and affect the quality of verbal interactions between AAC device operators ("AAC operators") and others. People speak much faster than they type. Not surprisingly, operators who speak with AAC devices, particularly NMD operators whose motor deficits impair their ability to use a keyboard, lag substantially in their conversations. The slow pace of an AAC operator's word production disrupts normal verbal interaction. Speaking persons, accustomed or not to the AAC operator's slow rate, often lose patience in conversations with AAC operators. They may prematurely terminate the conversation, read the AAC device display in an attempt to guess at the AAC operator's intended utterance and so accelerate the interaction, lead the AAC operator, ask predominantly yes/no questions, change the topic of conversation with little input from the AAC operator and otherwise dominate the interaction. The AAC operator often has difficulty participating as an equal partner in the conversation. He may be unable to change the topic, interject a humorous comment in a timely fashion or respond to a question before the speaking person changes the topic. Slow AAC operators may be perceived as mentally slow. Thus the quality of verbal interactions where one party uses an AAC device to speak depends significantly upon the AAC operator's rate of word production.
Increasing an operator's letter or menu option selection rate proportionately increases his word production rate and increases the operator's productivity in data entry generally. Letter or menu option selection time includes the time the operator requires (a) to comprehend the menu options displayed, (b) to move the pointer to the desired menu option on the display, and, in selection by dwell, (c) the selection threshold period, or, in selection by click, (c) the time required to operate the switch. Decreasing any one of these increases the operator's productivity, assuming all other steps in the selection process are unaffected.
Personal interactions are composed of more than speech alone. People in conversation gesture to one another, use facial expressions, change the object of their gaze and make non-speech utterances (e.g. "hmmm-mmmm") to bid for a turn to speak, to grant such a bid made by the other party, to request to continue speaking and to acknowledge, accept or dispute what has been said. Ideally, the production of speech from an AAC devices does not distract the AAC operator from the personal interaction and subject matter of the conversation. This is possible if the operator habituates the AAC device access technique and menu structure, producing speech without focusing on each step of the process, much as automobile drivers habituate mechanical tasks, such as changing gears and switching between foot pedals, and focus their attention on pedestrians or traffic lights while operating their vehicle.
Another consequence of personal interaction during conversation for an AAC device operator is that the operator needs a way to easily enable and disable the AAC device operator interface so that movement the operator makes during personal interaction, for example, nodding his head, is not interpreted by the AAC device.
As noted previously, neurogenic muscular disorders may impair the ability of an individual to sense the position of a body member. An NMD operator thus relies more than his able-bodied peer on the location of a cursor or similar automated indication of body member position. Conventional access methods which use a pointer do not provide additional feedback to the operator of the position of a body member.
Access methods which require the NMD operator to make the same movement for most selections, such as single switch access, mouth sticking (the use of a small rod held in the mouth and used to depress keys on a keyboard) and head sticking (the use of a rod mounted on the head and used to depress keys on a keyboard), may result in repetitive motion injury, particularly after years of use.
The need for quick selection from a menu also arises from the use of optical character recognition ("OCR") systems which attempt to recognize graphic symbols and words based on attributes for optical recognition purposes, for example, the appearance of graphic symbols, the ratio of dark space to light space within part or all of a graphic symbol, the ratio of dark space in one part of a graphic symbol to the dark space in another part of the graphic symbol, and the derivative of darkness over the scan of the graphic symbol. OCR systems convert the contents of a typewritten document into a computer encoding of the same. OCR systems at times are unable to recognize a graphic symbol or word, or may err in selecting a graphic symbol or word from a plurality of candidates. Therefore, following optical character recognition, a human may proofread and correct the computer encoded document. The proofreader may indicate where an error or omission in the computer encoded document occurred and may select from a plurality of menu options, each representing a candidate graphic symbol or word.
There are several aspects of the disclosure, each addressing one or more of the problems described above and/or one or more problems specifically addressed by that aspect of the disclosure. The advantages and description of each aspect, where applicable, is separately described below under one of the headings: (A) Perimeter Menu, (B) Confinement, (C) Dwell, (D) Path Directness, (E) Intersection, (F) Alignment, (G) Length Order, (H) Location Indication, (I) Sound Match, and (J) Ideographic Languages. Where there is background art applicable to an aspect in addition to that described above, the additional background art is described below.
A & B. Perimeter Menu and Confinement
One advantage of the Perimeter Menu and Confinement aspects of the disclosure is to simultaneously display an application program window and a computer access menu which does not obstruct the application program window.
Another advantage of the Perimeter Menu and Confinement aspects of the disclosure is to allow an operator to enable and disable a menu.
Another advantage of the Perimeter Menu and Confinement aspects of the disclosure is to speed data entry.
C. Dwell
Conventional systems allowing selection by dwell do not provide an indication to the operator of either how much dwell time has been accumulated for any selectable region or how much more dwell time is required to select a selectable region. Consequently, an operator of a conventional system who is dwelling on a intended selectable region has no indication, other than his estimation from prior use of the system, that he has nearly made his selection and can plan his next movement to the next selectable region or that he has very nearly made his selection and can begin moving to the next selectable region. Furthermore, an operator of a conventional system who is dwelling on an unintended selectable region, has no indication, other than his estimation from prior use of the system, of how close he is to making an unintended selection and thus how important it is to act quickly. Conventional systems using discontinuous dwell give no indication of the accumulated dwell time associated with a selectable region either when the operator dwells on that region or when the operator ceases dwelling on that region. Some disabled users can dwell relatively easily on their intended targets for short periods of time, but have difficulty dwelling for long periods. If such an operator knows that only a little more dwell time is needed he may be able to satisfy the dwell time required for selection, without preparing himself to dwell for an extended period.
Conventional menu-driven data entry and order entry systems incorporating pointing at intended selections employ a two step selection procedure. In the first step the operator indicates, with a pointer, his intended selection. The system then provides feedback, for example, by highlighting the indicated selection, showing which selection the operator has indicated. In the second step, the operator selects the indicated selection, for example, by operating a switch. Thus, conventional data entry and order entry systems are ill-suited to circumstances where the operator cannot easily operate a switch while maintaining the pointer on the intended selection.
While the two step procedure is not complicated, many operators require some training to learn it, and, if they are infrequent users of the system, these operators may require refresher training. Simplifying the procedure further would lessen the need for initial and refresher training.
One advantage of the Dwell aspect of the disclosure is to facilitate the use of systems allowing selection by dwell.
Yet another advantage of the Dwell aspect of the disclosure is to facilitate the use of a data entry system by an intermittent operator.
D. Path Directness
The on-screen keyboard with dwell selectable key images is ill-suited for use by many NMD operators. Selection by dwell may fatigue NMD operators or may require greater fine motor control than they bring to this task. Operators with impaired ability to stop motion and those having involuntary tremors may have difficulty maintaining the location indicated by a pointer on a key image for a period sufficient to distinguish intentional dwelling from unintentional dwelling. Consequently, some NMD operators who try to use on-screen keyboards often miss their target key images and/or accidentally select unintended key images. Following such an error, the operator must erase his erroneous selection by selecting the backspace or undo key. As the number of erroneous selections increases, the operator's productivity decreases markedly, since each error requires a correction in which there might be another error.
Conventional on-screen keyboards require the ability to select by dwell or by click and thus are limited to operators with these capabilities. Conventional on-screen keyboards do not utilize the relatively intact motor capabilities of some NMD operators to compensate for impaired ability to select by dwell or by click or to speed up the slow process of selecting by dwell. For example, while an NMD operator may overshoot a key image, his directional control may be relatively intact. Conventional on-screen keyboards do not exploit this capability.
The dominant computer operating system for graphic applications on general purpose computer systems today is the Windows® Operating System. Windows® assigns meaning to the cursor location. When the operator moves the cursor on top of a menu item and clicks, Windows® interprets the action as manifesting an intent to choose that menu item. The operator's path to that menu item, whether direct or circuitous, is irrelevant. Operators who can move toward a target accurately but cannot maintain the location indicated by a pointer on the target cannot effectively use standard Windows® applications through the conventional interface to these applications.
Often NMD operators cannot steady a pointer while operating a switch; the act of operating the switch triggers involuntary muscle activity pulling the cursor off target. For these operators, conventional selection by click is not practicable. Conventional selection by dwell also requires greater fine motor control than many NMD operators bring to this task. Operators with impaired ability to stop motion may overshoot their intended target. Operators whose voluntary muscle activity is accompanied by some involuntary muscle activity affecting their directional control often cannot point accurately. Operators with involuntary tremors often cannot maintain the location indicated by a pointer on a key image. Consequently, NMD operators who try to use on-screen keyboards often miss their target key images and accidentally select unintended key images. Following such an error, the operator must erase his erroneous selection by selecting the backspace or undo key. As the number of erroneous selections increases, the operator's productivity decreases markedly, since each error requires a correction in which there might be another error.
F. Alignment
Conventional on-screen keyboards do not compensate for NMD operators' inability to stop motion. Suppose the operator has been fitted with a head pointing device so that his head motion moves the cursor and that he's using the quaternary keyboard shown in FIGS. 3, 4 and 5. Assume further that, as he attempts to point to the quadrant containing the "j" key image (1308) in FIG. 3, he is unable to stop on that quadrant and continues turning 20 more degrees to the left. There are two known ways of responding to this situation: (1) the cursor may continue to track the operator's motion and disappear from the display, leaving no indication to the operator of the location of the cursor and consequently causing some operator disorientation, or (2) the cursor may "stick", i.e. remain confined to the display, at, for example, point (1312). Conventional on-screen keyboards respond in this way. The operator's line of sight is now 20 degrees to the left of the cursor location. After the dwell period, the quadrant (1308) is selected and FIG. 4 is displayed. The cursor hasn't moved. It is now at point (1320). Assume that again the operator attempts to point to the quadrant containing the "j" key image (1324) in FIG. 4. As the operator turns his head to the right, the cursor immediately moves with him Thus, the operator's line of sight remains 20 degrees to the left of the cursor location as the cursor moves to the right across the display. The operator must watch the cursor out of his right eye. The problem is aggravated if either the operator cannot cleanly stop or if he drifts as he dwells. Assume that while attempting to dwell on quadrant (1324) the operator drifts 25 degrees past the bottom of the screen. His line of sight is now 25 degrees below and 20 degrees to the left of the cursor. To correct this misalignment in the conventional quaternary keyboard, the operator must turn his head to the right, "stick" the cursor against the right edge of the display, and continue turning 20 degrees until he has the cursor in his line of sight. Then he must lift his head until he sticks the cursor against the top edge and continue lifting 25 degrees more. Alternatively, in this scenario, the operator could stick the cursor in the upper right corner of the display and simultaneously rotate his head up and to the right until he brought the cursor into his line of sight.
Alignment is also a problematic for NMD operators who use a pointer, such as a mouse, with which the operator indicates a location on a surface, e.g. a desk top, which corresponds to a desired location on the display, and achieves alignment by removing the pointer from the surface, e.g. lifting the mouse, moving the mouse, then replacing it on the surface. Due to impaired fine motor control, many NMD operators cannot remove a pointer from the surface and replace it on the surface at a desired location without unintentional movement or extraordinary effort. For these operators, alignment cannot be effectively achieved through conventional means.
In summary, misalignment interferes with accurate pointing and the process of correcting for misalignment may result in the selection of unintended key images.
G. Length Order
As noted previously, one of the elements determining the menu option selection time is the time the operator requires to comprehend the menu options displayed. This time may be reduced if the operator can limit the number of menu options he searches in looking for his desired menu option. Conventional word prediction systems attempt to reduce this operator search time. The operator of a conventional word prediction system may, for example, select the letter "p". The system displays some number, say six, of the most frequently used words beginning with the letter "p". Conventionally these six words are displayed either in alphabetic order or in order of frequency of use. Assuming the operator does not see his desired word on the display, he selects another letter, say "r". The system then displays the six most frequently used words beginning with the letters "pr".
Searching a displayed list of words in alphabetic order requires that the operator focus his attention on the selection task, as opposed to the information content of the conversation or other task the operator is engaged in. Further, determining whether a given word is alphabetically greater or lesser than a desired word takes substantial time, slowing the selection process. An alphabetically ordered list is of limited use to an individual who has below normal spelling ability, a frequent problem among individuals with impaired speech. Ordering words by frequency of use often does not limit the number of words the operator must search. The word at the bottom of the displayed list, for example, the sixth most frequently used word beginning with the letters "pr" may be a very common word, even though it is less frequently used than the other five displayed words.
H. Location Indication
The difficulties experienced by NMD operators in pointing to relatively small selectable regions have already been described. One approach to these difficulties is to enlarge the on-screen selectable region, illustrated by the quaternary expansion on-screen keyboard already described. Another approach is the conventional eye gaze system for a speech impaired individual, depicted in FIG. 8. The system consists of a plexiglass frame (6352) having a centrally located aperture (6354). The eye gaze system is positioned between the speech impaired individual and person with whom the speech impaired individual is communicating. There are eight groups of five squares each on the plexiglass frame. Each square within each group of five squares is color coded, e.g. red, blue, green, yellow and clear, matching the color on each of the four corners of the plexiglass frame. The clear square matches the aperture (6354). All squares are labeled with symbols representing items to be communicated. These labels are not shown in FIG. 8. The person with whom the speech impaired individual is communicating observes the eyes of the speech impaired individual to determine the target of the speech impaired individual's eye gaze. To communicate an item, the speech impaired individual gazes first toward the one of the eight groups of five squares, indicating that he wants to communicate one of the symbols in that group, and gazes second toward one of the four corners and aperture (6354) matching the color of the square labeled with the item to be communicated in the previously indicated group.
Two types of selectable regions are conventionally used in a point and click menu interface in a graphical user interface. The first, shown in FIG. 9, depicts a menu having three menu options, labeled "High", "Medium" and "Low", each displayed on a display (4807), each associated respectively with selectable regions (4801), (4803) and (4805), and each located adjacent the associated selectable region. FIG. 10 depicts a menu having the same three menu options, each displayed on a display (4807), each associated respectively with selectable regions (4901), (4903) and (4905), and each intersecting the associated selectable region. In both these conventional menus, a menu option is selected by pointing to and clicking on the associated selectable region.
Conventional menu hierarchies in automated systems, built from menus of the type shown in FIG. 9 or FIG. 10, require that the operator proceed sequentially through the steps of searching menu options, selecting one of them, and, assuming a menu option including a submenu was selected, searching the submenu options, and selecting one of them. Where selection from menu hierarchies constitutes a substantial component of the operator's activities, the slowness of the selection process diminishes productivity.
Locating selectable regions or parts thereof outside the display, in accordance with the Perimeter Menu aspect of the disclosure, allows the large areas outside the display to be used, a major advantage for operators having impaired fine motor control who are unable to maintain a pointer on a small selectable region while selecting by click or by dwell. However, if menu options are displayed on the display near the perimeter of display and near their associated selectable region, the operator has an indication of the location of each selectable region but may not be able to see all the displayed menu options in a glance. Because an operator usually searches a displayed menu for his intended menu option, placing the menu only near the perimeter of the display may increase menu search time, thus increasing menu option selection time.
I. Sound Match
Conventional speech recognition systems facilitate computer access for individuals unable to use a standard keyboard whose speech is relatively unimpaired, for example, an individual with quadriplegia, and hands-free computer access for able-bodied individuals. The operator of such a speech recognition system reads a menu option out loud, for example, "open file", and the system, which includes sound receiving means, for example, a microphone coupled to a sound board having a Digital Signal Processor ("DSP"), receives the sound of the read menu option, digitizes the sound of the read menu option, and then provides the digitized sound to another component of the speech recognition system, sound matching means which includes an application program for matching the digitized sound to one of a plurality of sounds, each representing respectively the sound of a spoken menu option. The system determines which sound best matches the sound of the read menu option and selects the menu option associated with this best matched sound.
Individuals whose speech is impaired are often unable to effectively use conventional speech recognition systems because they often cannot produce a large distinct variety of sounds characteristic of phonetic languages. For example, such an individual may produce similar sounds for the two consonants "t" and "d" so that these sound are indistinguishable to a conventional speech recognition system, or such an individual may not be able to consistently produce sounds distinguishable by a speech recognition system, resulting in false matches. Other symptoms of impaired speech, for example, similarities among certain phonemes and impaired ability to start or stop sound production appropriately, may substantially limit the variety of sounds distinguishable to a conventional speech recognition system an individual may consistently produce.
Conventional speech recognition systems provide limited capabilities in languages rich in homophones, for example, Chinese, because in such languages, a distinct sound is often insufficient to specify a word, as is described in the Background Art section of the Ideographic Languages aspect of the disclosure. The problem may be briefly illustrated by an example. Suppose a Chinese data entry operator using a conventional speech recognition system speaks the phonetic unit "fu" with a particular intonation. This distinct sound may well have over 15 homophones. Although the operator could use the keyboard to select one of these 15 homophones, this defeats the purpose of speech recognition, which is to facilitate hands-free computer access.
J. Ideographic Language
The use of ideographs as the graphic symbols in written languages is found in many parts of the world. An ideograph, as used herein, is a graphic symbol used to represent an object, an idea or a word, without expressing, as in a phonetic system, the specific sounds forming the verbal expression of the object, idea or word. Ideographic languages include Chinese, Japanese and Korean. A graphic symbol, as used herein, includes, but is not limited to, each of the following: a letter of an alphabet, a Japanese kava, and an ideograph. For purposes of illustrating the concepts of the present disclosure specific reference will be made herein to a preferred embodiment of the system and method as it applies to the Chinese language.
In modern Chinese, a repertoire of between 2500 and 3000 ideographs is necessary to achieve normal business adequacy in reading and writing, while the language itself has approximately 50,000 ideographs that have been identified historically, with about 10,000 ideographs in current use. The conventional keyboard, with approximately 100 keys, is designed for languages with phonetic scripts, such languages having a small set of graphic symbols, i.e. letters. If such a keyboard were to be used in a corresponding manner for the direct input of Chinese ideographs, it would require many thousands of keys since, unlike western phonetic languages, Chinese has many thousands of ideographs. Selection of an ideograph from such a keyboard would require the operator to search a great many keys for the desired key, and thus be impracticably slow.
Prior art methods for selecting Chinese ideographs make use of various ideograph classification systems known to Chinese speakers. The operator first specifies a class of ideograph, based on a first characteristic common to many ideographs. Ideographs having that common characteristic are displayed and the operator selects from among them, either directly, by selecting an individual ideograph, or indirectly, by specifying a second common characteristic usually dependent upon the first characteristic, thus further limiting the displayed ideographs to those having both the first and second common characteristics. In some prior art methods, the operator may continue to specify characteristics until he has specified a unique ideograph.
One ideograph classification system is called the Pin Yin System. This classification system uses the phonetic structure of the Chinese language. In spoken Chinese there are approximately 412 basic phonetic units, each having a monosyllabic sound, for example, "nee", "how" and "ma". Four intonations can potentially be applied to each phonetic unit, resulting in approximately 1280 distinct sounds. With 10,000 ideographs in current use, each represented by one of approximately 1280 distinct sounds, it is evident that many Chinese ideographs are homophones, i.e. have the same sound. Over 80% of Chinese ideographs have homophones. The Pin Yin System uses this limited number of phonetic units as the basis for its classification. Ideographs which are homophones are classified together; the common characteristic of the Pin Yin System is the distinct sound.
According to the Pin Yin and Zhu Yin coding methods, known in the prior art, the operator specifies a distinct sound using a keyboard labeled with symbols representing the Latin alphabet (Pin Yin method) or Chinese phonetic units (Zhu Yin method). The first key operation or sequence of key operations specifies the phonetic unit. The second key operation specifies the intonation. In general, less than 15 ideographs have this sound, though in some cases there are many more homophones. These are displayed and the user selects from among them. In such cases, the operator, depending upon the system, may page through matching ideographs or specify another common characteristic to further limit the number of ideographs displayed. A common characteristic which may be used at this stage exploits another feature of the Chinese language. The majority of Chinese words are expressed by a combination of two ideographs, the meaning of the paired ideographs has its own meaning which may or may not be related to that of the constituent ideographs. Assuming the operator has specified a first distinct sound matching 40 ideographs, he may specify a second distinct sound which alone may match, for example, 20 ideographs, but there may be only two ideograph pairs having the specified first and second distinct sounds in that order. Thus, a second common characteristic may limit matching ideograph pairs to a number sufficiently small for the operator to efficiently search and select from, or may uniquely specify an ideograph pair. Another common characteristic the operator may specify to limit the number of matching ideographs is a meaning or meaning class to which one or more sequences of one or more ideographs belong.
Yet another feature of the Chinese language which may be exploited to limit the number of matching sequences of ideographs is the ideograph block. An ideograph block is a sequence of four ideographs which together has its own meaning which may or may not be related to that of the constituent ideographs. As above, where the operator specified a distinct sound for the second of two ideographs of an ideograph pair, so may the operator specify a distinct sound for the second, third and/or fourth ideograph of an ideograph block, to limit the number of matching ideograph blocks.
Another conventional ideograph classification system makes use of a classification of parts of ideographs. Ideographs are built from a set of 214 components, called radicals. Different radicals, perhaps placed within different locations within an ideograph, are combined to create an ideograph. According to the Chan Jie coding method, known in the prior art, the operator specifies one or more radicals appearing in the ideograph he wishes to enter. He may, for example, use a keyboard having at least 214 keys, each corresponding to a radical, or may actuate a sequence of keys, the sequence corresponding to a radical. Other common characteristics the operator may specify to limit the number of matching ideographs include a phonetic unit, the first brush stroke, and the last brush stroke used to draw the ideograph.
Another conventional ideograph classification system makes use of a classification of parts of ideographs. According to the Four Corner coding method, known in the prior art, the operator specifies the classification of the four corners of the ideograph he wishes to enter. Other common characteristics the operator may specify to further limit the number of matching ideographs include the number of horizontal strokes used to draw the ideograph, and the classification of a certain part of the ideograph above the lower right corner.
Yet another conventional ideograph classification system makes use of a classification ideographs based on the basic strokes from which each ideograph is built. In Chinese, there are a limited number of basic strokes, each ideograph being composed of between 1 and 33 such strokes. Ideographs may be classified by a small number of basic strokes, preferably according to strict rules regarding the order of stroke entry. In one conventional application of this coding method, the operator specifies only the first and last basic strokes of the desired ideograph, then selects from a display of all ideographs sharing this first-last basic stroke combination.
Japanese is somewhat more complicated than Chinese. In addition to ideographs, the Japanese language uses graphic symbols called kana, which includes hiragana and katakana. In written Japanese, ideographs are frequently combined with kana. Kana may be may specified phonetically, for example, to designate the hiragana pronounced "ko" an operator of a Japanese word processing system may type "k" and then "o" on a Latin alphabetic keyboard or may type a single key associated with this hiragana. Kana has multiple uses in a Japanese word processing system. Kana may represent itself, since kana may stand alone in Japanese text. Alternatively, kana may be used to specify Japanese ideographs, either by specifying the radicals which compose Japanese ideographs or by specifying the pronunciation of Japanese ideographs. A sequence of phonetic units specified by kana may represent that sequence of kana, a single Japanese ideograph, multiple Japanese ideographs, or a combination of one or more Japanese ideographs and one or more kana. In addition, a single Japanese ideograph may have multiple pronunciations, including a Japanese pronunciation and a Chinese pronunciation, and may have multiple kana spellings.
Conventional word processing systems for ideographic languages suffer from certain deficiencies. First, in systems where the operator specifies common characteristics until he has uniquely specified an ideograph, the operator must be extensively trained in the particular classification system. Depending upon the system, the operator may need to know, for example, how may horizontal brush strokes are required to draw a desired ideograph, or each of the 214 radicals and the encoding of each of them on a keyboard having less than 214 keys. Second, in systems where the operator uses both hands on the keyboard to specify a common characteristic, then selects from among ideographs, ideograph pairs or ideograph blocks by operating a function key or by pointing to one of the options with a mouse or other hand operated pointer and then operating a switch, the operator lifts one of his hands from the keyboard, makes the selection and then moves his hand back to the keyboard to specify another common characteristic. This sequence occurs often and contributes to the slow average rate of word entry (approximately 20 words per minute) for Chinese relative to alphabetic languages. Another problem in these systems is that the display of ideographs for selection may obscure part of the image of the previously entered ideographs or other information on the display.
Another drawback of many word processing systems for ideographic languages relates to the ease of copying a document. Ideally, the operator concentrates on the document to be copied, only occasionally scanning text he has input. For those word processing systems that display ideographs on a display for the operator's selection, the operator must frequently shift his gaze from the document to the display and back again. The operator cannot concentrate on both the document and the display simultaneously.
Ideographs, as used herein, also include the symbols of symbol sets used for communication by individuals who have hearing, speech or language impairments, for teaching literacy skills to those lacking them, including pre-literate children and individuals with intellectual disabilities, and for international written communication. These symbol sets include, but are not limited to, each of the following: Picture Communication Symbols, Rebus, Picsym, Pictogram Ideogram Communication Symbols, Yerkish, Blissymbolics and depictions of the signs of a manual sign language. Examples of symbols of the Picture Communication Symbols, Rebus, Picsyms, and Blissymbolics symbol sets are shown in FIG. 11, Pictogram Ideogram Communication Symbols in FIGS. 12(a)-12(d) and Yerkish in FIGS. 13(a)-13 (j). Picture Communication Symbols, Rebus, Picsyms, Pictogram Ideogram Communication Symbols, Yerkish, and Blissymbolics are each described in Beukelman, David R. & Mirenda, Pat, Augmentative and Alternative Communication, Management of Severe Communication Disorders in Children and Adults, Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 1992, pp. 22-29.
Individuals who have not acquired or who have lost their literacy skills may use symbolic symbol sets in learning to read. If the individual lacks fine motor control, for example, due to cerebral palsy, the individual's disability may inhibit the acquisition of literacy skills by, for example, inhibiting repetition of an exercise by the individual, by limiting the individual's ability to participate in the classroom, or by making skill assessment by a teacher difficult so that the teacher may incorrectly believe that remediation is necessary or that a particular skill has been mastered. If the individual also has impaired speech, literacy acquisition is more difficult still.
Conventional literacy training systems for individuals who are unable to use a standard keyboard or mouse may use switch access, often in combination with scanning. As already described, scanning is an extremely slow process. Moreover, as the number of symbols in the symbol set increases, the time required to select a symbol also increases. Of the symbol sets mentioned above, Picture Communication Symbols contains approximately 1800 symbols, Rebus contains approximately 800 symbols, Picsyms contains approximately 1800 symbols, Pictogram Ideogram Communication Symbols contains approximately 400 symbols and Blissymbolics contains approximately 1400 symbols. When using a system with a static display, the operator may expend considerable time and effort finding the desired symbol; when using a system with a dynamic display, the operator may expend considerable time effort memorizing and recalling where a particular symbol is located within a hierarchy of symbols. This time and effort generally does not contribute to the acquisition of literacy skills.
One advantage of the Ideographic Languages aspect of the disclosure is to display a menu of sequences of one or more ideographs on a display so that a large contiguous area on the display is not obstructed by the menu.
Another advantage of the Ideographic Languages aspect of the disclosure is to facilitate ideograph entry in word processing systems for the Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages.
Still another advantage of the Ideographic Languages aspect of the disclosure is to speed selection of sequences of graphics including one or more ideographs.
Yet another advantage of the Ideographic Languages aspect of the disclosure is to allow an operator of a word processing system for an ideographic language to select a sequence of one or more ideographs without lifting either hand from the keyboard.
A further advantage of the Ideographic Languages aspect of the disclosure is to indicate to an operator the progress toward selection of a dwell-selectable sequence of one or more ideographic characters.
Additional advantages and features of the disclosure will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following or may be learned by practice of the disclosure. Each of the advantages of the disclosure may be realized by at least one embodiment of at least one of the appended claims.
Still other advantages of the present disclosure will become readily apparent to those skilled in this art from the following detailed descriptions, wherein I have shown and described the preferred embodiment of each aspect of the disclosure, simply by way of illustration of the best mode contemplated by me of carrying out each aspect of my disclosure. As will be realized, each aspect of the disclosure is capable of other and different embodiments, and its several details are capable of modifications in various obvious respects, all without departing from the disclosure. Accordingly, the drawings and descriptions are to be regarded as illustrative in nature, and not as restrictive.

Apparatus and method for selecting from a display


A novel design for desiccant air dryer pneumatic mufflers includes a core comprising a perforated inner tube with baffles attached to the outside surface of the inner tube. The inner tube is positioned in the interior of an outer tube, and a cap is positioned on one end of both tubes. The interior portion of the cap is solid so that it blocks the flow of air at the end of the inner tube, forcing the air to flow through the perforations in the inner tube and into the outer tube. The perimeter of the cap is perforated so that the air exits the muffler.

Compressed air systems are commonly used in a number of industrial applications. During the course of such industrial operations, the compressed air may become contaminated with water vapor. If left untreated, the water vapor may condense into the various components downstream from the compressor. In order to prevent such condensation, which may corrode components or otherwise interfere with the industrial application, an air dryer removes the water vapor from the compressed air.
In a regenerative desiccant air dryer, the compressed air passes through a desiccant material which results in the removal of moisture from the compressed air. Over time, the desiccant material becomes more and more saturated, leaving it unable to remove moisture effectively, and the desiccant material must be "regenerated." During the regeneration process, the desiccant vessel is isolated from the pressurized line and a "blow down" valve is opened to release the pressurized air in the desiccant vessel through the saturated desiccant and out an exhaust system. The desiccant is then treated to remove the moisture from the desiccant. Once regenerated, the desiccant vessel is reconnected to the pressurized line and continues to remove the moisture from the compressed air. Depending on the air dryer equipment used and the level of air dryness required for the particular application, the regeneration process may occur every two to eight minutes; the release of pressurized air through the exhaust may take about fifteen seconds.
When the blow down valve is opened, the release of compressed air creates significant aerodynamic noise which may cause ear damage to anyone in the vicinity of the dryer. To lessen the effect of the noise, dryer systems often include pneumatic mufflers to reduce the noise level. Known pneumatic mufflers may contain fiberglass, treated paper, wire mesh, or other packing materials which divide and slow the air flow, which in turn reduces the aerodynamic noise. However, over time, the packing material becomes blocked with oil and dirt which obstructs the air flow through the muffler and creates a back pressure on the equipment, which may lead to greater noise and potentially to catastrophic failure of the device. Further, because of the regular exposure to blasts of air, at pressures of 230 psi or more, pneumatic mufflers are subject to loss of structural integrity over time. Further, if there is a malfunction in the regeneration process, the desiccant may turn to a sludge-like form; if the desiccant in this form is subsequently blown into the muffler during regeneration, the muffler will become unusable. As such, even in the best of working environments, pneumatic mufflers must be replaced on a regular basis, and over time, the cost and labor required for replacement of the mufflers can become substantial.
What is needed, therefore, is a regenerative desiccant air dryer pneumatic muffler which provides suitable noise dampening capabilities during blow down without the associated cost and labor required for repair and/or replacement.

Pneumatic muffler for desiccant air dryer


In the present invention, an electron injection composition for a light-emitting element, comprising a pyridine derivative represented by general formula 1 and at least one of an alkali metal, an alkali earth metal, and a transition metal, is used to form an electron injection layer in a portion of a layer including luminescent material in a light-emitting element, and it is also an object of the present invention to provide, by using the composition, a light-emitting element that has more superior characteristics and a longer lifetime as compared to conventional ones,

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electron injection composition for a light-emitting element, a light-emitting element formed with the use of the electron injection composition, and a light-emitting device that has the light-emitting element.
2. Description of the Related Art
A light-emitting element that uses a material as a light emitter, which has features such as a thin thickness and lightweight, a high speed response, and low DC voltage drive, has been expected to be applied to a next-generation flat panel display. In addition, it is said that a light-emitting device that has light-emitting elements arranged in a matrix shape is superior in having a wide view angle and a high level of visibility, as compared to a conventional liquid crystal display device.
A light-emitting element is said to have an emission mechanism that: an electron injected from a cathode and a hole injected from an anode are recombined in the luminescence center of a layer including luminescent material to form an excited molecule when a voltage is applied with the layer including the luminescent material between the pair of electrodes; and energy is released to emit light while the excited molecule moves back toward a ground state. As the excited state, a singlet excited state and a triplet excited state are known, and luminescence is said to be possible through any of the singlet excited state and the triplet excited state.
As for such a light-emitting element as this, there are a lot of problems depending on materials against improving characteristics of the element, and therefore, in order to overcome the problems, the structure of the element has been improved and materials for the element has been developed, for example.
One of the problems depending on materials is that there are few appropriate materials for forming a transparent conductive film. As an appropriate material for forming a transparent conductive film, a material that has a large work function (specifically a work function of 4.0 eV or more) such as ITO (indium tin oxide) or IZO (indium zinc oxide) of indium oxide mixed with zinc oxide (ZnO) at 2 to 20% is known. Since the transparent conductive film as mentioned above is used for a transparent electrode to take light from a light-emitting element to the outside, it is usually the case that the transparent electrode functions as anode of the light-emitting element.
On the contrary, it is reported that an electron injection from a transparent electrode can be improved to make the transparent electrode formed of a material that has a large work function such as ITO function as a cathode when a layer for improving an electron injection from an electrode (hereinafter, referred to as an electron injection layer) is formed in contact with the transparent electrode (refer to Non-Patent Documents 1 and 2, for example). In this case, an electron transport material (for example, tris(8-quinolinolato)aluminum (hereinafter, referred to as Alq3), 2,9-dimethyl -4,7-diphenyl-1,10-phenanthroline also referred to as bathocuproin (hereinafter, referred to as BCP), and copper phthalocyanine (hereinafter, referred to as Cu-Pc)) is doped with an alkali metal to form the electron injection layer.
In addition, it is also reported that an electron injection from an electrode can be remarkably improved in the case where BCP among electron injection layers, which is known as a material that is superior in transporting only electron, is doped with Li.
However, it is difficult to keep amorphous when BCP is used to form a film, and BCP also has a defect of being easy to crystallize with time. Therefore, in the case of forming an element, deterioration in device characteristics such as fluctuations in luminance is caused due to a change in luminous efficiency, and the element also has a problem of a shortened lifetime due to deterioration in luminance.
(Non-Patent Document 1)
Junji Kido, Toshio Matsumoto, Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 73, No. 20 (16 Nov. 1998), 2866-2868
(Non-Patent Document 2)
G. Parthasarathy, C. Adachi, P. E. Burrows, S. R. Forrest, Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 76, No. 15 (10 Apr. 2000), 2128-2130

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Electron injection composition for light emitting element, light emitting element, and light emitting device

Abstract: where each of X1 and X2 represents:

Abstract: (where each of R1 to R8 represents hydrogen, halogen, a cyano group, an alkyl group having 1 to 10 carbon atoms, a haloalkyl group having 1 to 10 carbon atoms, an alkoxyl group having 1 to 10 carbon atoms, a substituted or unsubstituted aryl group, or a substituted or unsubstituted heterocyclic group).

Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd.


A data transmitting device provided in an electro-developing type camera using a recording medium which electronically develops an image formed by a photographing optical system. A photographing optical system and an interface unit can be selectively attached to a lens mount of the camera body. The lens mount is provided with control data contact terminals and image data contact terminals. The control data contact terminals are used for transmitting first control data including lens information of the photographing optical system to the camera body, and for transmitting second control data between the camera body and the interface unit. The image data contact terminals are used for transmitting image data obtained by the electro-developing recording medium to the interface unit. The interface unit has an output terminal which can be connected to an external computer.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a camera using a recording medium in which an object image obtained through a photographing optical system is electronically developed, and more particularly, to a device for outputting the image recorded in the recording medium to outside of the camera.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 5-2280 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,424,156, there is known a photographic material which is directly electronically developed so that a developed visible image can be immediately obtained. In this specification, such a recording medium is referred to as an electro-developing recording material, and an electronic still camera using th e electro-developing recording material is referred to as an electro-developing type camera.
In the electro-developing type camera, a connecter may be provided on an outer surface of the camera body, so that image data recorded in the electro-developing recording medium are read therefrom and are transmitted through the connecter to a device, such as a computer provided outside of the electro-developing type camera. Such a connecter, however, is relatively large due to the large number of pins required, and must be handled very carefully so as not to damage the pins. This may make the handling of the camera difficult during a normal photographing operation.


A substrate having a copper wiring is prepared. An insulating film is formed on the copper wiring. The insulating film is etched with a gas containing fluorine to form an opening reaching the copper wiring. A plasma treatment is carried out on a surface of copper exposed at a bottom of the opening without turning plasma discharge off after forming the opening in the same chamber as the formation of the opening.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device, and more particularly, to a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device having copper wiring.
2. Background Art
Copper (Cu) has been employed as a wiring material in semiconductor devices. Copper is advantageous in that it is lower in resistance than aluminum (Al), with its permissible current in reliability being greater by two or more orders of magnitude than Al. Accordingly, the comparison between copper and aluminum leads to the fact that when using copper in order to obtain the same level of wiring resistance, the film thickness can be made smaller, with the possibility that the capacitance between wiring is reduced.
On the other hand, copper has the problem that it exhibits a high diffusion velocity in a silicon (Si) film or a silicon oxide (SiO2) film. In order to solve this problem, it has been usual to provide a multi-layered wiring structure (see, e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 10-261715).
Reference is now made to a copper wiring procedure in a multi-layered wiring structure. Initially, a first trench is formed in a first silicon oxide film. After the formation of a barrier metal film for preventing copper from being diffused toward the inner walls of the first trench, copper is buried in the first trench to form a first wiring layer. Next, after the formation of a silicon nitride (Si3N4) film on the first silicon oxide film so as to cover the first wiring layer therewith, a second silicon oxide film is formed on the silicon nitride film. Subsequently, the second silicon oxide film and the silicon nitride film are, respectively, etched to form a via hole and a second trench. Thereafter, the via hole and the second trench are, respectively, formed with a barrier metal on the inner surfaces thereof, and copper is buried in the via hole and the second trench, thereby forming a via plug and a second wiring layer. According to the steps set out hereinabove, the first wiring layer and the second wiring layer are electrically connected with each other through the via plug to form copper wiring having a multi-layered wiring structure.
In the above copper wiring procedure, when the via hole and the second trench are formed, the second silicon oxide film is etched to reach the surface of the silicon nitride film. Then, the silicon nitride film is etched with a mixed gas of tetrafluoromethane (CF4) and oxygen (O2), or a mixed gas of trifluoromethane (CHF3) and oxygen as an etching gas. In this way, copper for forming the first wiring layer is exposed to at the bottom of the via hole.
However, a fluorine-based deposit derived from the etching gas for the silicon nitride film is left on the copper surface immediately after the etching, with the attendant problem that the reaction between the fluorine and the copper enables a fluorine-containing polymer film to be formed on the copper surface. The formation of such a polymer film creates such a state that a native oxide film on the copper surface is undesirably broken. In this condition, if the semiconductor substrate is removed to outside of the etching chamber, the copper reacts with moisture in air thereby causing the copper to be corroded.

Method of manufacturing a semiconductor device with copper wiring treated in a plasma discharge


Systems and methods are provided for wearable patient identifiers. One embodiment is a labeling system that includes an interface, a memory storing rules that indicate on a patient-by-patient basis whether to print clinical notifications onto wearable patient identifiers, based on fields of electronic health records acquired via Health Level 7 (HL7) messaging, and a controller. The controller presents a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that includes interactive elements that enable alteration of the rules. The interactive elements include, for each rule: a first dialogue that indicates a field storing data to acquire from an electronic health record; a second dialogue that indicates a value to compare to the data; and an operator that logically combines the data and the value to arrive at a Boolean result. The controller determines whether to include a clinical notification in print data for a wearable patient identifier, based on the Boolean result.

It remains crucial that patients within a hospital are properly identified and treated by hospital personnel. If patients are improperly identified or if they are subject to clinical restrictions which are not clearly indicated to hospital personnel, then the patients may be at risk of injury or even death due to the lack of information. For example, if a patient is allergic to a specific medication, it is important to clearly indicate this to hospital staff in order to ensure that the patient is not exposed to that medication. For many conditions, it is not sufficient to simply update a chart for a patient with clinical notifications. Rather, the patient is also labeled with clinical restrictions (e.g., via one or more wristbands). This is especially important for patients who may travel to different areas of a hospital for treatment.
Present techniques for identifying and labeling patients utilize manual identification of each patient, manual detection of each clinical condition, and the printing (or hand-writing, or pulling from stock) of a separate wrist band for each condition of the patient. This process is time-consuming, which hampers the speed of admissions into a hospital. It is also subject to human error, which increases the chances that incoming patients will be mislabeled resulting in mistreatment. Still further, for patients with multiple clinical restrictions, the use of multiple wristbands (one for each condition) may be cumbersome for both the patient and for hospital personnel.
Thus, hospitals continue to seek out enhanced techniques for increasing the speed of admissions, increasing the accuracy of patient labeling, and reducing the time required by hospital personnel to perform patient labeling.

Personalized wearable patient identifiers that include clinical notifications


A system for delivering a drop of liquid to an eye of a subject, wherein the instrument has a receiver to receive a liquid to be delivered to the eye of the subject, a transfer portion to receive the liquid from the receiver to advance a drop of the liquid by gravity and capillary action through a capillary tube to a lower discharge outlet whereat the drop of liquid breaks away and drops from the capillary tube, and a lid retractor supported adjacent to the discharge outlet of the capillary tube, for being pressed against the lower lid of the subject to form a cul-de-sac at the lower lid. The lower discharge outlet of the capillary tube is positioned adjacent to and above the lid retractor in a position to deposit the drop of liquid into the cul-de-sac.

Many people throughout the world are required to administer liquid drops into their eyes for a variety of purposes, such as, for administering medication to control or prevent disease, to reduce inflammation, to reduce intraocular pressure, to supply liquid tears, etc.
Current practice involves dispensing the liquid from a container dropwise into the eye of the patient by squeezing the container.
However, particularly in the case of older and disabled people, accurate dispensing of the drops into the eye of the patient is unreliable. Often such patients are unsteady in holding the eye drop dispenser, have difficulty in tilting their head back or must lie in a supine position to allow the placement of the eye drop into the patient's eye. Frequently, more than one drop is dispensed and commonly the drops are not dispensed into the eye but land on the patient's cheek resulting in widespread wastage. In the case of very expensive medications, this is costly. In brief, standard squeezable eye drop dispensers for medications or liquid tears typically dispense more than one drop when the container is squeezed and often miss their target.

Hand-held device enabling accurate dispensing of a drop of a liquid into the eye of a subject


A lift detection arrangement (100, 200) in a robotic lawnmower for detecting a lift of a body (110, 210) relative a chassis (105, 205) of the robotic lawnmower is provided. The lift detection arrangement (100, 200) comprises a connection between the chassis (105, 205) and the body (110, 220). The connection comprises a joystick element (115, 215) 5 arranged to allow a displacement of the body (1110, 210) relative the chassis (105, 205) in a collision plane during a collision, and a lift element (120, 220) arranged to provide a flexibility between the chassis (105, 205) and the body (110, 210) in a lift direction during the lift. The lift detection arrangement (100, 200) further comprises a lift sensor configured to detect a displacement over a predetermined threshold of the lift element (120, 220) 10 during the lift by detecting a change in spacing between two sensor parts (125, 126, 225, 226). One of the two sensor parts (125, 126, 225, 226) is arranged on the lift element and the two sensor parts (125, 126, 225, 226) are arranged to be relatively displaceable only in the lift direction.

A robotic lawnmower is a device configured to autonomously move across a lawn to cut grass by means of a rotating cutting blade. The robotic lawnmower comprises a chassis to which ground engaging wheels and the cutting blade are attached. The robotic lawnmower further comprises a body arranged above the chassis. A function of the body is to prevent people from being injured by the cutting blade, as well as to protect the chassis and cutting blade from rain, dirt and clippings which may cause clogging and malfunction of the robotic lawnmower.
The body may be flexibly attached relative the body in the travelling plane or collision plane, such that a relative displacement of the body relative the chassis is possible if the body collides with an obstacle. This is to enable the robotic lawnmower to detect the obstacle and move away from it.
For this purpose, the connection between the body and the chassis may be arranged to allow relative movement between the body and the chassis in the collision plane, i.e. in a plane essentially parallel to the lawn that is being cut.
A further feature of the robotic lawnmower is an arrangement for lift detection.
This is important for protecting people from being injured by the cutting blade when the robotic lawnmower is lifted during operation, and lift detection arrangements are therefore usually arranged to automatically stop rotation of the cutting blade when a lift is detected.
By having a lift detection arrangement for detecting a lift of the body relative the chassis, it is possible to quickly stop rotation of the cutting blade. Such detection requires a connection of the body to the chassis which allows flexibility in a lift direction.
A problem is that it is difficult to distinguish a lift from a collision, since both lifts and collisions cause the body to flex relative the chassis.
This may cause false lift detections and unnecessary stops of the robotic lawnmower.


A drinking glass includes a side wall having a transparent circuitous path directed therealong extending from entrance of the drinking glass to a second position in adjacency to a floor portion of the drinking glass to indicate fluid level within the drinking glass structure. Various nomenclature and educational indicia spaces are provided along the circuitous path. A modification includes the drinking glass having a spacing to permit various webs positionable within the drinking glass side wall structure to vary the information and educational indicia available to an individual.

1. Field of the Invention
The field of invention relates to drinking glass structure, and more particularly pertains to a new and improved novelty drinking glass wherein the same is arranged for the education and entertainment of individuals during drinking of fluid from a drinking glass.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Drinking glasses of various types have been utilized throughout the prior art for the entertainment, amusement, and manner of positioning a drinking glass relative to a support surface such as indicated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,040,535 to Shephard, wherein a condensation reservoir is mounted within a support of a drinking glass.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,599,362 to Klober sets forth a drinking glass having a conically widened portion relative to an associated drinking glass clamping itself thereto in an engaging fit.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,239,223 to Wilson sets forth a drinking glass having a transparent bottom portion having a novelty game portion positioned therewithin.
The instant invention attempts to overcome deficiencies of the prior art by providing for a drinking glass wherein fluid level visibility is available to an individual during a drinking procedure, wherein various indicia and messages are positioned about the circuitous path for the entertainment and amusement of an individual to assist in an incentive, particularly to children and the like, for the drinking of fluids from a drinking glass and in this respect, the present invention substantially fulfills this need.


Structure for an electronic keyboard instrument includes upper and lower cases. The lower case has a bottom plate having lower slits, and the upper case has an upper plate having upper slits. The upper and lower cases are fastened together with the upper case overlapped on the lower case and with opposite edge portions of a circuit board inserted in the lower and upper slits in such a manner that the circuit board is disposed upright between the upper and lower cases. Heat radiating plate is attached to the circuit board. A wiring, drawn out from an operation section provided on the upper case, is wired to pass across a neighborhood of the upper end surface of the heat radiating plate under the lower surface of the upper plate. Heat blocking plate is provided between the heat radiating plate and the wiring to block transfer of heat from the heat radiating plate to the wiring.

The present invention relates generally to structures for electronic keyboard instruments. More particularly, the present invention relates to an improved structure for an electronic keyboard instrument which includes a lower case having a bottom plate for mounting thereon a keyboard unit on a portion thereof closer to a human player (i.e., on a player-side portion of the bottom plate) and an upper case having an upper plate to cover an upper portion of the lower case, and in which the upper case is overlapped on the lower case from above the lower case. Further, the present invention relates to an improved structure for an electronic keyboard instrument of a type where an operation section is provided on the upper surface of the upper plate.
In recent years, circuit boards to be incorporated in electronic keyboard instruments have been getting smaller and smaller, and it has become possible to house a circuit board in an upright position or posture within a housing. One example of such electronic keyboard instruments is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2004-171038. In the disclosed electronic keyboard instrument, an instrument housing comprises two major components: a housing body section; and a rear housing section.
The housing body section includes a bottom plate for mounting thereon a keyboard unit, and the bottom plate has openings in its upper and back sides. On the rear housing section, there are provided a roof plate portion (upper plate) that covers the upper opening of the housing body section and a back plate portion that covers the back opening of the housing body section. Further, a main circuit board is mounted, by screwing or the like, to the back plate portion of the rear housing section in an upright position. In assembling the housing of such a conventionally-known electronic keyboard instrument, the main circuit board is mounted to the back plate portion of the rear housing section, and then the rear housing section is mounted to the housing body section by being sled relative to the housing body section frontward, i.e. toward a position where a human player of the keyboard instrument is supposed to be at the time of playing (hereinafter also referred to as "player side").
However, with the housing of the aforementioned conventionally-known electronic keyboard instrument, it is necessary to screw the main circuit board to the back plate portion of the rear housing section, and thus, separate screwing operation has to be performed. Consequently, there has been encountered the problem that the assembling work tends to be extremely cumbersome.
Further, an operation section, including operation buttons etc., is provided on the upper surface of the roof plate portion of the rear housing section. Wiring section, drawn out from the operation section, is wired beneath and along the lower surface of the roof plate portion and connected to the main circuit board. In some cases, the wiring is wired to pass across a neighborhood of the upper end surface of a heat radiating plate provided on the main circuit board beneath the roof plate. Consequently, heat is dissipated toward the wiring section, so that there would occur inconveniences, such as unwanted melting of the coating of the wiring due to the heat from the heat radiating plate. Further, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. HEI-10-126015 discloses forming perforated lines in a printed circuit board and removing unnecessary circuit board portions along the perforated lines at the time of attachment or mounting of the circuit board. However, so far, the removed circuited board portions have been discarded as unnecessary.

Structure for electronic keyboard instrument


A kit of tarsometatarsal joint arthrodesis tools include a metatarsal multi-tool, a first ray multi-tool, a cuneiform cut guide, and a joint compressor-distractor. The metatarsal multi-tool is configured for securement to a first metatarsal establishing an anatomic reference for carrying out a surgical procedure and guiding a surgeon to perform the metatarsal base cut. The first ray multi-tool is configured for securement to the first metatarsal using a fixation method. The first ray multi-tool is also configured to be secured to the medial cuneiform. The cuneiform cut guide is configured for removable attachment to the first ray multi-tool and is configured to guide the surgeon to perform the cuneiform head cut. The compressor-distractor is configured to apply a force to the first ray multi-tool such that the position of the first metatarsal may be adjusted toward or away from the medial cuneiform.

Bunion correction surgery is a common procedure performed to re-align the first metatarsal from a deformed position, indicated by increased mobility of the first ray, medial deviation of the distal end of the first metatarsal, and rotation about its long axis. The condition is referred to as hallux (abducto) valgus deformity and is widely considered to be caused by hypermobility of the tarsometatarsal joint, however some consider hypermobility to be the result of the deformity. Surgical intervention can be performed at the proximal or distal ends of the first metatarsal, depending on the severity of the condition and surgeon preference. Where there is extensive first ray mobility, deformity, pain, or recurrence from a previous surgical intervention, fusion of the tarsometatarsal ("TMT") joint is typically performed. This procedure is commonly referred to as the Lapidus procedure, named in honor of Paul W. Lapidus who popularized the approach.
The Lapidus bunion correction procedure has evolved over the many years since it was introduced in the early part of the Twentieth century. Initially correction was a simple linear realignment of the first metatarsal generally in the transverse plane, however modern thinking considers Lapidus bunion correction to be tri-planar, including corrections in the transverse, sagittal, and frontal planes, the latter corresponding to rotation about the long axis of the metatarsal. Subsequently, the multidimensional corrective manipulation of the first metatarsal has increased the complexity of the surgical procedure, requiring both the ability to spatially visualize the corrective realignment and perform a more intricate surgical procedure.
The additional burden on the surgeon to perform the modern version of the Lapidus procedure is considered to have limited the frequency of which the procedure was performed, leaving fewer surgeons to perform the surgery. Correspondingly, additional pressure from patients for quicker recovery and less scarring has increased the preference of a more robust yet minimally invasive approach. In an attempt to facilitate execution of the Lapidus procedure, device manufacturers have devised various surgical tools to aid in one or more of the multi-planar correction maneuvers as well as TMT joint preparation. However, the underlying complexity of the procedure has resulted in such instrument systems incorporating a multitude of components and/or many procedural steps in order to carry out the correction. While improvements of Lapidus procedure instruments have been made over time, there remains a gap in the current offerings that is simple, has few components, a small number of surgical steps, and reduces the overall complexity of the Lapidus procedure.

Tarsometatarsal joint arthrodesis tools and related method for bunion correction


A support rack for a side loading arm of a refuse vehicle has a frame to secure with the refuse vehicle. A rack is pivotally coupled with the frame. A biasing member is coupled between the rack and frame. The biasing member enables pivotal movement of the rack between a first and second position. The biasing member returns the rack to the first position after movement into the second position.

Cradles or storage racks exist for carrying side loading arms of refuse vehicles during over the road travel conditions. Ordinarily, the storage racks include an arm, via an interference fit, that connects the rack and arm together. However, over time, as the side loading arm is run multiple times and hits the rack during operation, the rack deforms. Once the rack is deformed, it no longer serves its purpose to support the arm during over road travel conditions. Thus, it is desirable in the art to have a support rack or cradle that is able to support the side loading arm during over road travel conditions for a long period of time.
The present disclosure provides the art with such a cradle or storage rack design. The present disclosure provides a biased rack that provides for movement of the side loading arm during over road traveling. The rack is biased such that the rack moves during bumpy conditions or the like, when excessive forces are applied to the arm, to enable movement of the arm. The rack is spring loaded to hold the arm in a rest position and to bias during an exerted force on the rack and to return the side loading arm to its original position after the force has been removed.

Cradle for a side loading arm for refuse vehicle


Methods, systems, and devices for channelizing a wideband waveform for transmission on a spectral band comprising unavailable channel segments are described. Generally, the described techniques provide for transmitting and receiving wideband waveforms when channels of a system bandwidth are unavailable for transmission. A transmitter may separate a first wideband signal into segments, with each segment a bandwidth corresponding to a channel of the system bandwidth, and may map the segments to the available channels. The transmitter may combine the mapped segments into a second wideband waveform and transmit the second wideband waveform using the available channels. A receiver may receive a first wideband signal waveform and may separate the first wideband signal waveform into segments, de-map the segments and combine the de-mapped segments into a second wideband waveform for demodulation. The techniques may be used to transmit and receive wideband waveforms over tactical data links.

The following relates generally to wideband communications, and more specifically to channelizing a wideband waveform for transmission on a spectral band comprising unavailable channel segments.
Wired and wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. Some communications systems may be used in the context of secure communications, such as tactical communications. In addition, some communication systems may experience frequency-dependent interference. Such communications systems may be subject to various constraints and challenges.

Channelizing a wideband waveform for transmission on a spectral band comprising unavailable channel segments