A memory cell is formed for a memory cell array that is comprised of a plurality of the memory cells arranged in rows and columns. Deep trenches having sidewalls is formed within a semiconductor substrate. A buried plate region adjoining a deep trench is formed within the semiconductor substrate, and a dielectric film is formed along the sidewalls of the deep trench. A masking layer is patterned such that a portion of the dielectric film is covered by the masking layer and a remaining portion of the dielectric film is exposed. An upper region of the exposed portion of the dielectric film is removed such that a trench collar is formed along a middle portion of a side of the deep trench. The deep trench is partly filled with doped polysilicon. The dopants in the polysilicon diffuse through the side of the deep trench into adjoining regions of the semiconductor substrate during subsequent thermal processing steps to form a buried strap region along a side of the deep trench. The semiconductor substrate is patterned and etched to form at least one isolation trench that adjoins the isolation trench and two of the deep trenches and includes a buried strap region. The patterning uses a mask comprised of a lines and spaces pattern such that at least one active area is defined by the isolation trench and by the deep trench. Each of the lines and the spaces extends across the memory cell array.

The present invention is directed to memory devices and, more particularly, to dynamic random access memory (DRAM) structures formed in a substrate.
Dynamic random access memory devices (DRAMs) typically include a semiconductor memory cell array formed in a plurality of memory cells arranged in rows and columns and include a plurality of bit lines as well as a plurality of word lines that intersect the bit lines. Each memory cell of the array is located at the intersection of a respective word line and a respective bit line and includes a capacitor for storing data and a transistor for switching, such as a planar or vertical MOS transistor. The word line is connected to the gate of the switching transistor, and the bit line is connected to the source or drain of the switching transistor. When the transistor of the memory cell is switched on by a signal on the word line, a data signal is transferred from the capacitor of the memory cell to the bit line connected to the memory cell or from the bit line connected to the memory cell to the capacitor of the memory cell.
When data stored in one of the memory cells is read onto one of the bit lines, for example, a potential difference is generated between the bit line of the respective memory cell and the bit line of another memory cell which form a bit line pair. A bit line sense amplifier connected to the bit line pair senses and amplifies the potential difference and transfers the data from the selected memory cells to a data line pair.
An advantage of DRAMs over other types of memory technology is their low cost because of the simplicity and scaling characteristics of the memory cell. Though the DRAM memory cell is based on simple concepts, the actual design and implementation of such cells typically requires a highly complex DRAM design and process technology.
An example of current DRAM technology is a buried capacitor DRAM memory in which memory bits are constructed in pairs to allow sharing of a bit line contact. The sharing of the bit line contact significantly reduces the overall cell size. Typically, the memory bit pair includes an active area (AA), a pair of active word lines and a pair of passing/field word lines, a bit line contact, a metal or polysilicon bit line, and a pair of cell capacitors.
The bit line pitch, i.e., the width of the bit line plus the distance between adjacent bit lines, typically determines the active area pitch and the capacitor pitch. The active area width is typically adjusted to maximize the transistor drive and minimize the transistor-to-transistor leakage.
The word line pitch typically determines the space available for the bit line contact, the transistor length, the active area space, and the capacitor length and width. Each of these dimensions must be optimized to maximize device capacitance, minimize device leakage and maximize process yield.
A common memory bit is known as an eight square feature or 8F2 cell. By definition, the feature size is the minimum realizable dimension for a given process. In practice, however, the feature size is one-half of the word line (row) pitch or bit line (column) pitch. As an example, a 0.25 μm process having word line and bit line pitches of 0.6 μm typically provides a memory bit size that is 8·(0.3 μm)2=0.72 μm2. The 8F2 designation is best explained by traversing along the outer boundary of a memory cell. Traversing along one axis, the path includes one-half of a bit line contact feature, one word line feature, one capacitor feature, one field polysilicon feature, and one-half of a polysilicon space feature, for a total of 4 feature lengths. Along another axis that is perpendicular thereto, the path includes two one-half field oxide features and one active area feature for a total of two feature lengths. The area of the memory bit is therefore 4F·2F=8F2, also referred to as 8F2.
The folded array architecture always produces an 8F2 memory bit because each word line connects, namely forms a crosspoint, with a memory bit transistor on every other bit line and passes around the memory bit transistors as a field polysilicon layer on the remaining bit lines. The field polysilicon layer in each memory bit cell adds two square features to what otherwise is a 6F2 cell. Though the folded array yields a cell that is 33% larger than the 6F2 array architectures, the folded array results in superior signal-to-noise performance, especially when combined with bit line folding.
The 8F2 folded array architecture has the disadvantage, however, that its active areas are delimited by isolation trenches that are defined by mask patterns comprised of segmented lines. As semiconductor devices become increasingly smaller, the segmented line mask patterns likewise are smaller and become increasingly difficult to print because of line shortening effects and because the limited size of the open areas that can be printed using the masks.
Further, as devices become smaller, the vertical transistors become increasingly prone to problems caused by cross-talk between the vertical transistors, such as back-gating and floating wells.
Moreover, as the devices become smaller, the bit line-to-word line capacitance and the bit line-to-bit line capacitance increase because of increased wrapping of the bit line contact regions around the word line.
It is therefore desirable to provide a DRAM structure and fabrication process that avoids these problems.

Line mask defined active areas for 8F2 DRAM cells with folded bit lines and deep trench patterns

International Business Machines Corporation


Polymer nanocomposite having: a) a polylactic polymer; and b) a modified phyllosilicate composition having a modifying agent which includes hexadecyl trimethyl ammonium cations which are intercalated between the layers of the phyllosilicate; and preparation process of such a polymer nanocomposite. The polymer nanocomposite is particularly useful for packaging, particularly food and drink packaging.

In recent years, biodegradable resins, for example, polylactic acid (PLA) have come into focus from the viewpoint of environmental preservation. PLA is biodegradable thermoplastic aliphatic polyester, derived from renewable resources, such as corn starch or sugarcanes. PLA is a rigid and highly transparent biodegradable resin.
However, PLA has an insufficient gas barrier property for use as a material for fluid storage containers such as food storage containers. PLA has insufficient mechanical properties in some applications, e.g. packaging, due to its rigidity. Finally, PLA has too, insufficient thermal resistance for hot filling or transportation of bottles during the summer months. Hot filling is one of the methods that beverage makers use to reduce the chances pathogens end up in their products. The hot-filling process involves filling containers immediately after the product has been sterilized through a thermal processing operation at high temperature.
Therefore, PLA has limitations in its applications. In order to modify the gas barrier, thermal resistance and mechanical properties of PLA, the incorporation of nano-scale silicate by dispersion in the polymer matrix is a good solution.
Nanocomposites are sometimes prepared today using organically modified silicates produced by a cation exchange reaction between the silicate and usually an alkylammonium salt.
Preparation of modified phyllosilicates is well known. Thus, under appropriate conditions an organic compound containing a cation that can react by ion exchange with a phyllosilicate containing a negative layer lattice and exchangeable cations does so react to form the modified phyllosilicate.
The patent application EP1787918 describes a biodegradable polyester resin reinforced by a phyllosilicate. The phyllosilicate is substituted with ammonium, pyridinium, imidazolium, or phosphonium ions. Examples of ammonium ions include tetraethylammonium, octadecyltrimethylammonium, and dimethyldioctadecylammonium among other ions. The resin has improved barrier properties but no consideration is given regarding improvements in the mechanical properties such as the elongation at break.
Thus, from what is known, it is derived that the development of a material with improved mechanical, thermal and barrier properties is still of great interest.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Polymer nanocomposite comprising polylactic acid reinforced with the modified phyllosilicate

INSTITUTO TECHNOLÓGICO DEL EMBALAJTE, TRANSPORTE Y LOGÍSTICA (ITENE)


A cargo container for accommodating transport goods and for being arranged in a cargo compartment of a means of transport is provided. The cargo container includes a housing that can be closed so that it is airtight, and an internal coating. The internal coating is incombustible and is arranged on an inner surface of the housing. Thus, the cargo container makes it possible to limit propagation of a fire to the internal space of the housing.

Cargo containers are used in order to be loaded with transport goods and in order to be arranged in means of transport. Transport goods can, for example, be the baggage of passengers of an aircraft, or generally items for being shipped that are transported in a means of transport, for example in or on a ship, a rail vehicle, a road vehicle or an aircraft.
Transport goods can be loaded into the cargo container beforehand, independently of the loading of the means of transport. The external dimensions of a cargo container can, in particular, match the internal dimensions or the internal space geometry of the cargo compartment of the means of transport.
The use of cargo containers for the loading of means of transport can reduce the time taken for loading and can make optimum use of an available internal space in the cargo compartment of the means of transport. Furthermore, with the use of cargo containers the weight distribution of the cargo in a means of transport can be influenced.
In a cargo compartment a multitude of cargo containers of an identical design can be used. In the case of cargo compartments with an asymmetric internal space geometry two or more cargo containers with a correspondingly matching external geometry can be provided. Several cargo containers can be arranged one behind the other in the longitudinal direction of the cargo compartment, thus forming a row. In a cargo compartment several rows of cargo containers can be arranged one beside the other and also one on top of the other.


There is disclosed an apparatus for measuring biometric information that can perform precise and comprehensive measurement by measuring biometric information about an examinee taking a more comfortable position. The apparatus for measuring biometric information includes a hand rest comprising a hand rest part formed in a concave curvature shape to have an examinee's hand put thereon, to contact with an examinee's palm and fingers; and a measurement part provided in the hand rest part to measure the examinee's biometric information.

Recently, there have been increasing concerns and demands for medical check-up, as the living standard and health-consciousness are improving. In a typical medical check-up, a blood pressure, a pulse wave, an electrocardiogram (EKG) and body fat are measured and utilized as basic data.
For that, each of medical offices is equipped with a sphygmomanometer for measuring the blood pressure, an electrocardiograph for measuring the electrocardiogram, a body fat meter for measuring the body fat, a pressurized pulse waveform for measuring the pulse wave and a plethysmograpy for measuring the blood flow rate.
However, conventional measuring devices have following disadvantages.
First of all, a single apparatus measures one piece of biometric information and different measuring devices have to be provided to measure a variety of human information. This requires too much unnecessary space and it is difficult to repair and maintain the apparatuses. Also, an examinee has to move from one device to another device to have the measurement and he or she has inconvenience.
Moreover, a single device measures a single type of biometric information. Accordingly, the measured biometric information fails to be collected and it has to be inputted and utilized by a human resource. When collecting the biometric information, an error or a mistake might be generated disadvantageously.

Device for measurement for bionic information

KOREA INSTITUTE OF INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY


A system includes a computing device that receives a query thyroid image, where the query thyroid image is an ultrasound image of a thyroid comprising a thyroid nodule of interest. The computing device processes the query thyroid nodule image using a machine learning model to identify at least one labelled thyroid image from a plurality of labelled thyroid images that is similar to the query thyroid nodule image. The plurality of labelled thyroid images are used as training data to generate the machine learning model. The at least one labelled thyroid image has labels associated therewith and comprises an ultrasound image of a thyroid nodule that has a confirmed diagnosis. The computing device generates an output report based on the labels associated with the at least one labelled thyroid image, where the output report indicates whether the thyroid nodule of interest resembles a malignant thyroid nodule or benign thyroid nodule.

About 50-60% of women over the age of 50 have thyroid nodules, but only about 5% of the thyroid nodules are cancerous. Existing technology to determine whether a thyroid nodule is cancerous may include invasive procedures. One such invasive procedure includes thyroid biopsy to determine whether a thyroid nodule is cancerous. The number of thyroid biopsies done in United States alone has been increasing on a yearly basis. However, in many cases, biopsy may not provide definitive results. That is, the biopsy result may be inconclusive (e.g., indeterminate or inadequate), in which case, a repeat biopsy and/or a molecular diagnostic work up such as genetic testing may be done. In some cases, even the repeat biopsy and/or genetic testing may not be definitive. For example, there are certain mutations such as RAS mutations which affect the accuracy of such genetic testing because they appear in both benign thyroid nodules and cancerous thyroid nodules. In some cases, when the biopsy result is inconclusive, other invasive procedures such as thyroid surgery may be done. The additional and/or repeat invasive procedures may be cost-intensive and adds more expense to the care of the patient. Further, invasive procedures such as thyroid surgery involves risk and associated complications such as bleeding, injury to nerves causing hoarseness, injury to parathyroid gland causing low calcium and related side effects.
As described above, studies have shown that typically only about 5% of the thyroid nodules are cancerous; and only about a third of thyroid surgeries done for suspected cancer result in the actual diagnosis of cancer. So, it is highly undesirable that currently patients have to undergo risky invasive procedures such as thyroid surgery to diagnose thyroid cancer with 5% prevalence among detected thyroid nodules and a 98.1% 5-year survival rate.
Technologies that use non-invasive procedures to detect cancerous thyroid nodules do exist. One such non-invasive procedure includes visually analyzing an ultrasound image of a thyroid nodule to determine whether a thyroid nodule is cancerous based on guidelines provided by various medical professional organizations and international medical societies such as American and European thyroid associations and/or Radiology associations. However, the process of visually analyzing ultrasound images of the thyroid nodules to identify cancerous thyroid nodules may be subjective and is not definitive. That is, the results of such visual analysis may vary from one radiologist or physician to another. In most cases, the indefinite and subjective nature of the visual analysis eventually forces the physicians to revert to the invasive procedure in hopes of a definitive result.
Some existing non-invasive technologies perform a computer based classification of the ultrasound images of thyroid nodules using image classification algorithms. The image classification algorithms may be configured to classify the thyroid nodules based on the guidelines provided by medical associations and deep learning techniques. While the computer based classification technology may be objective, it has been found that the existing computer based classification technologies produce many false negative results. For example, the existing computer based classification technology may identify a thyroid nodule as being benign, but a subsequent biopsy may indicate that the thyroid nodule is cancerous. Current systems are also prone to false positives. Unlike other type of cancers, such as breast cancer, the proportion of benign looking nodules in thyroid is comparatively higher, thereby significantly increasing the chances of obtaining false negative classifications using the existing computer based image classification technology. Further, image classification technology is not configured to distinguish or identify fine-grained image similarities between images. Also, existing image classification technology operates as black boxes which are not transparent. That is, said existing image classification technologies do not explain to a physician why the nodules are classified benign or cancerous.
It is noted that this background information is provided to reveal information believed by the applicant to be of possible relevance to the present disclosure. No admission is necessarily intended, nor should be construed, that any of the preceding information constitutes prior art against the present disclosure.

Machine learning based non-invasive diagnosis of thyroid disease


The invention relates to a method for navigation in a panoramic video sequence displayed on a user terminal. The video sequence is divided into a plurality of non-overlapping video patches each corresponding to a zone of the video sequence. The video patches required to form a zone of the panoramic video sequence to be displayed on a screen of the user terminal, called the visibility zone, are determined according to navigation commands.

Internet services using an interactive navigation via panoramic images have met with great success over the past few years. With these services, the user can notably have access and recover visual information from celebrity sites, virtually visit town or museums, move about virtually inside buildings, etc. These services are based on a technique know as IBR (Image Based Rendering) that, instead of using complex 3D modelling tools to construct graphic models, uses as texture imaging from the real world and applies these to basic 3D objects, such as cylinders, tubes or spheres, in which the user can navigate. The main disadvantage of the IBR technique is that it only enables the reproduction of static scenes.
Also, a few years ago, a technique known as VBR (Video Based Rendering) appeared in which the textures applied to the 3D object are video streams. According to this technique, several synchronised video streams are generated for example via a panoramic camera to capture the entire dynamic scene using several viewpoints. These streams are then processed and applied to the 3D object. The user can then navigate in this dynamic scene with the sensation of being immersed in it and of being at the heart of the action.
In the context of interactive navigation via panoramic images, a document is known entitled "Efficient Representation and interactive streaming of high-resolution panoramic views" by Carten Grünheit, Aljoscha Smolic and Thomas Wiegand, ICIP 2002. This document describes a procedure in which video streams of the panoramic scene are transmitted from a server to a user terminal according to navigation commands coming from the user. The video stream of the panoramic scene is a sequence of temporally successive panoramic images. In order to facilitate the transmission of this panoramic video sequence, it is divided into a plurality of non-overlapping video portions of pre-defined size forming a mosaic. These video portions are called video patches in the document cited previously and in the remainder of the present description. Each video patch corresponds to a spatial zone of the panoramic video sequence and presents a specific spatial position in the panoramic view. The video patch can comprise a fixed or variable number of successive video patches. This division of the panoramic video sequence into video patches is shown in FIG. 1. A panoramic video sequence 10 is divided into a plurality of video patches 11. Each video patch is coded separately in the server. The part of the video sequence referenced 12 represents the part of the sequence that is displayed on the screen of the user terminal. This zone is defined by the navigation commands transmitted by the user terminal and is called the visibility zone hereafter in the description.
FIG. 2 shows an example of the visibility zone 12 overlapping several video patches, referenced 11a to 11d. In this case so that the user terminal can display part 12, the server must transmit to it at least these 4 video patches.
So that the user has the impression of being immersed in the scene, it is necessary that the display of the video patches on the screen of the user terminal is rapid and fluid. For this purpose, a pre-fetching process of video patches is defined in the previously cited document. This process consists in triggering at the server the transmission of video patches even before they are contained in the visibility zone 12. The client requests of the server to transmit the video patches corresponding to a certain zone of the panoramic view and later than a given presentation timestamp, this presentation timestamp being estimated according to the current timestamp and the maximum time necessary to receive the patches. It also involves loading in the user terminal not only the video patches belonging to the current visibility zone but also those that are likely to be if the visibility zone moves in any direction following a user navigation command.
For this purpose, a zone 13, called a detection zone, is defined for each video patch 11, said zone 13 surrounding the image portion of the video patch 11 as shown for example in FIG. 3. In this example, the frontier of the image portion of the video patch and the frontier of its detection zone are separated by a distance d over the entire perimeter of the image portion. Once the visibility zone 12 enters the detection zone 13, a demand is transmitted to the server requesting it to transmit the video patch 11 to the user terminal.
In the example of FIG. 4, the part 12 overlaps the detection zones, referenced 13a to 13f, of six video patches 11a to 11f. The video patches 11a to 11f are thus pre-fetched into the user terminal on request by it while only the video patches 11a to 11d are comprised, in part or entirely, in the current visibility zone 12.
The pre-fetching of video patches in the user terminal enables overcoming, at least in part, the latency time between the transmission of the request and the reception of video patches by the user terminal.
The size of the detection zone 13 is made sufficiently large so that the request is transmitted sufficiently early to the server in order to obtain good navigation speed without however being too big to pre-fetch in the user terminal a too high number of video patches (knowing that some among them will never be displayed on the screen afterwards) and thus penalise the fluidity of the navigation. In fact, the size of the detection zone must be defined in order to obtain a good compromise between the fluidity and speed of the navigation. The navigation fluidity depends on the loading capacity of the user terminal processor, which diminishes with the size of the detection zone (more data to be downloaded. Conversely the navigation speed is proportional to the size of the detection zone (more time to load the data). This compromise is not however always easy to determine.
Moreover, the fluidity and the speed of navigation can be affected by dimensions of the direct channel of the network transporting the video patches and/or the return channel transporting the requests.
One aim of the present invention is to propose a method for interactive navigation in a panoramic video sequence enabling at least to partially overcome the disadvantages previously cited.

Method for navigation in a panoramic scene

Abstract: According to the invention, the video patches are provided to the user terminal, for one part, via a first transmission network and, for another part, via a second transmission network distinct from said first transmission network.


A method of manufacturing a composite module prevents a connection electrode electrically coupled to a functional element from separating from a first principal surface of an element substrate. A transmission filter element, a reception filter element, connection electrodes electrically coupled to the transmission filter element and the reception filter element, and an insulating layer surrounding the transmission filter element, the reception filter element, and the connection electrodes are disposed on a first principal surface of an element substrate. The insulating layer covers at least a portion of the surface of each of the connection electrodes. Because the portion of the surface of each of the connection electrodes in an exposed state is covered with the insulating layer, the connection electrodes electrically coupled to the transmission filter element and the reception filter element are prevented from separating from the first principal surface of the element substrate.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic component in which a functional element, such as a SAW filter element, BAW filter element, MEMS element, or switch IC, is disposed on a first principal surface of an element substrate, a method of manufacturing the same, a composite module including an electronic component, and a method of manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic components in which functional elements, such as surface acoustic wave (SAW) filter elements, bulk acoustic wave (BAW) filter elements, micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) elements, and switch ICs, are disposed on first principal surfaces of element substrates have become popular in recent years. In one such electronic component, each functional element is confined in a predetermined hermetically sealed space to enable a SAW filter element using a surface acoustic wave of an element substrate made of a piezoelectric material or a BAW filter element using a bulk acoustic wave, which is resonance vibration of a piezoelectric film itself, to be properly excited and to enable an MEMS element or switch IC having a mechanical operating portion to normally operate. Confining each functional element in the predetermined hermetically sealed space can prevent degradation in the characteristics of each functional element.
For example, in an electronic component 500 illustrated in FIG. 10 as one known example, a comb-shaped electrode 502 is formed on a first principal surface of an element substrate 501 made of a piezoelectric material, and thus a functional element made of a SAW filter element is disposed. The element substrate 501 is arranged such that the SAW filter element on the first principal surface faces a base substrate 506 (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-158436). Connection electrodes including terminal electrodes 503 electrically coupled to the comb-shaped electrode 502 and metal bumps 504 and an insulating layer 505 surrounding the SAW filter element and the connection electrodes are disposed on the first principal surface of the element substrate 501.
Connection terminals 507 are disposed on a mounting surface of the base substrate 506, and mounting electrodes 508 for use in external connection are disposed on its opposite surface. The connection terminals 507 and the mounting electrodes 508 are electrically coupled to each other with via conductors 509. The metal bumps 504 on the element substrate 501 are connected to the connection terminals 507 on the base substrate 506, the element substrate 501 is mounted on the base substrate 506, and thus a hermetically sealed space surrounded by the insulating layer 505 is formed between the element substrate 501 and the base substrate 506. The SAW filter element is confined in that hermetically sealed space.
The mounting surface of the base substrate 506 is filled with molding resin, and the element substrate 501 is molded and protected by a molding layer 510. Because the above-described configuration enables the comb-shaped electrode 502 (piezoelectric material) arranged in the hermetically sealed space to be properly excited, a surface acoustic wave produced by an input of a signal can normally travel along the surface of the element substrate 501, and degradation in the comb-shaped electrode 502 arranged in the hermetically sealed space can be avoided.
Miniaturization in mobile communication terminals has rapidly advanced in recent years, and there has been a need for further reducing the height and size of composite modules incorporated in the mobile communication terminals. Accordingly, with the aim of reducing the height and size of the above-described electronic component incorporated in each of the composite modules, the electronic component having a bare chip mounting structure is provided. In the electronic component having the bare chip mounting structure, an insulating layer that surrounds a predetermined area in a first principal surface of an element substrate on which a functional element is disposed is laminated with a cover layer. The functional element is confined in a space that is surrounded by the insulating layer and that is formed between the element substrate and the cover layer.
An electronic component having a wafer level-chip size package (WL-CSP) structure can have a configuration in which a cover layer is removed to further reduce its height and size. In that case, however, because a connection electrode disposed on a first principal surface of an element substrate included in the electronic component and electrically coupled to a functional element is in an exposed state, after the electronic component is manufactured, the connection electrode may separate, for example, in the course of moving the electronic component.

Electronic component, method of manufacturing same, composite module including electronic component, and method of manufacturing same


The present invention relates to a wireless communication system. Particularly, the present invention relates to a method and a device for reporting channel state information, the method comprising the steps of: carrying out operations for periodic reporting of a first channel state information item; and carrying out operations for periodic reporting of a second channel state information item, wherein the period for reporting the first channel state information item is longer than the period for reporting the second channel state information item, and the second channel state information item is determined on the basis of the first channel state information item.

3GPP LTE (3rd Generation Partnership Project Long Term Evolution, referred to as 'LTE' hereinafter) will now be described as an exemplary wireless communication system to which the present invention is applicable.
FIG. 1 illustrates an E-UMTS (Evolved Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) as a wireless communication system. The E-UMTS is a system evolved from UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) and currently standardized in 3GPP. The E-UMTS may be referred to as an LTE (Long Term Evolution) system. For details of the technical specifications of UMTS and E-UMTS, Release 7 and Release 8 of "3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical specification Group Radio Access Network" are referred, respectively.
Referring to FIG. 1, the E-UMTS includes a user terminal (UE), an eNode B (eNB), and an access gateway (AG) located at the end of the network (E-UMTS) and connected to an external network. The eNB can simultaneously transmit multiple data streams for a broadcast service, multicast service and/or unicast service.
One or more cells are present per base station. A cell sets one of bandwidths of 1.25 MHz, 2.5 MHz, 5 MHz, 10 MHz, 15 MHz and 20 MHz for a carrier and provides downlink/uplink transmission service to a plurality of UEs. Different cells may provide different bandwidths. An eNB controls data transmission/reception to/from a plurality of UEs. The eNB transmits downlink scheduling information about downlink data to a UE to inform the UE of a time/frequency region in which the downlink data will be transmitted, coding information, data size, hybrid automatic repeat and request (HARQ) related information, etc. The eNB transmits uplink scheduling information about uplink data to the UE to inform the UE of a time/frequency domain that can be used by the UE, coding information, data size, HARQ related information, etc. An interface for user traffic or control traffic transmission may be used between eNBs. Core Network (CN) is consist of access gateway (AG), network node for registration of UE user, etc. Access gateway (AG) controls the mobility of UE by a unit of Tracking Area (TA) consisted of a plurality of cells.
While wireless communication technology has been developed into LTE based on wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA), demands and expectations of users and providers continue to increase. Furthermore, technical evolution is needed for future competitiveness of wireless communication technology since other wireless access technologies are under development. For technical evolution, reduction of cost per bit, service availability increase, flexible use of frequency band, simplified structure, open interface, appropriate power consumption of terminals, etc. are required.

Method for reporting channel state information in wireless communication system, and device therefor


A drag reduction system introduces pressurized gases to selected regions of a vehicle, such as a tractor trailer combination 100 for reducing the aerodynamic drag thereon. The system 140 or any combination of components thereof may be installed on new combinations or may be retrofitted on existing combinations. The drag reduction system may be controlled to selectively determine which regions receive pressurized gases and at what flow rates such regions receive the pressurized gas.

Numerous means have been sought to improve the fuel-efficiency of moving bodies, and especially moving bluff bodies, by reducing their aerodynamic drag. In the field of surface transportation, and particularly in the long-haul trucking industry, even small improvements in fuel efficiency can reduce annual operating costs significantly. It is therefore advantageous in the design of a vehicle to reduce drag forces; thereby increasing the aerodynamic properties and efficiency of the vehicle.
The over-the-highway cargo hauling tractor-trailer combination is one vehicle that experiences excessive aerodynamic drag. Generally described, tractor-trailer combinations 18 typically include a tractor 20 having a so-called fifth wheel by which a box-like semi-trailer 24 may be attached to the tractor 20 by an articulated connection for transportation of the semi-trailer 24, as shown in FIG. 1. By providing the articulated connection, a space or gap 28 is formed between the rear wall 32 of the tractor cab and the forward wall 44 of the semi-trailer 24. It is well known that this gap 28, or the gap between succeeding trailers (not shown) of a tractor trailer combination causes wake regions and, as a result, pressure drag.
Previous investigations of aerodynamic drag of tractor-trailer combinations resulted in widespread adoption of air deflectors mounted on tractor cabs and/or trailer bodies, and wholly redesigned tractors that utilize aerodynamic fairings to gradually increase the relatively small frontal area of the tractors to match, and to blend smoothly with, the larger cross-section of typical trailers, in an attempt to deflect air efficiently across the gap between cab assemblies and trailer bodies. Current air deflectors and fairings help guide the airstream around the front of tractor-trailer combinations and/or smooth the air flow over the gap between the articulated bodies, thereby reducing aerodynamic drag and improving fuel efficiency. Please see U.S. Pat. No. 4,021,069 to Hersh, U.S. Pat. No. 2,514,695 to Dempsey, U.S. Pat. No. 4,210,354 to Canning and U.S. Pat. No. 3,971,586 to Saunders, which are typical of trailer-mounted nose cone assemblies, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,245,862 to Buckley and U.S. Pat. No. 4,904,015 to Haines, which are typical of cab mounted deflectors or fairings. While in some instances these systems reduce the effective gap between bodies, such gap reduction is incidental and often there is still a significant amount of drag caused by the gap. Thus, aerodynamic drag reduction across the air gap between adjacent articulated tractor-trailer combination bodies is only partially achieved by fairings and deflectors.
Another approach, which has been the subject of numerous patents but has not been widely adopted in the trucking industry, is to attempt to span or seal the gap between vehicle bodies by fairings, panels, resilient bodies or the like. Please see U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,611,847, 4,397,496, 4,343,506, 4,141,755, 4,036,519, 3,834,752, 3,711,146, 3,425,740, 2,101,793 and D238,161, which disclose articulated tractor-trailer combinations having side and top structures that extend across the gap between the cab assembly and the trailer body to reduce the vehicle's aerodynamic drag.
These prior art mechanical gap-spanning systems, however, tend to suffer from problems of reliability and operating inconvenience. Some must be moved or removed to permit full relative articulation of the tractor-trailer bodies, while others often cannot reliably accommodate repeated articulation, particularly at large angles. Additionally, movable, inflatable and elastic panel systems, particularly if they require deployment controls, can add significantly to the cost of the tractor-trailer combination and they can be difficult to retro-fit to existing combinations. Such mechanical gap-spanning devices also often present problems when the trailer must be detached or separated from the tractor, which may be required several times a day in some applications.
Pressure drag on tractor-trailer combinations is not limited to the frontal area of the tractor and/or the gap disposed between the tractor and the articulating trailer. It is well known that the rear end of bluff bodies, such as trailers, are known to contribute significantly to aerodynamic drag as evidenced by the formation of a wake in the trailing region behind the trailer. The generation of the wake, formed by eddies can be contributed to the shape of the conventional trailer 24, which is essentially a rectangular box having a flat, rectangular roof 38 and matching floor 40, along with flat, rectangular side panels 42. The front and rear surfaces 44 and 46 of such trailers 24 are also generally flat rectangular surfaces. As such, current bluff bodies, such as trailers 24 suitable for use with tractors 20 of the Class 8 type, suffer from a low pressure zone at the rear 36 of the trailer 24 such that the airstream suffers from early separation, resulting in a broad eddying wake forming downstream of the separation. The net result is the creation of considerable aerodynamic drag.
Unfortunately, attempts to make the trailer shape more aerodynamic within the overall length of the trailer have been accompanied by reduced carrying capacity and interference during loading of the trailer. Additionally, attempts to make the rear of the trailer more aerodynamic, for example, by the addition of panels or inflatable bladders (not shown), can suffer from disadvantages such as added weight and a significant lengthening of the trailer, with associated reductions in fuel efficiency and more difficult handling characteristics.

Systems and methods for reducing the aerodynamic drag on vehicles


A method of forming elbow-shaped crackers using a die cutter is provided. By one approach, the method includes first preparing a cracker dough, and then sheeting the cracker dough to form a dough sheet having a thickness. Next, the formed dough sheet is advanced through a die cutter to form a plurality of elbow-shaped dough pieces from the dough sheet. The formed dough pieces have a non-symmetrical degree of curvature between top and bottom sides thereof so that the formed dough pieces have a recognizable elbow-shaped configuration and the plurality of formed dough pieces are nested together by the die cutter so that there is no sheeted cracker dough remaining between adjacently nested dough pieces.

Cracker products are generally formed by cutting out the desired shape of the cracker from a sheet of cracker dough and baking the cracker dough to form a baked cracker product. Various approaches can be used to form the dough and cut the dough into pieces having the desired shapes for baking. For example, individual cutters or molds may be used to form the cracker dough into a desired shape. More automated processes involve the use of cutting dies which define the shape of the prebaked dough piece. The cutting die may be attached to a reciprocating cutting plate or a rotary cutting drum. In many instances, the rotary cutting dies are often desirable because sheets of cracker dough can be fed to the rotary cutting die and cut into their desired dough shaped pieces in a continuous process to increase throughput.
When using the cutting die, it is generally desirable to reduce an amount of scrap material or dough not formed into a cracker shape, which can occur along the edges of the dough sheet or through spaces between the individual cutting dies disposed on the cutter. Various configurations for the production of cracker products using cutting dies exist; however, each may have shortcomings when applied to non-symmetrical or thin shapes, such as elbow-shaped crackers. For example, it is relatively straightforward to form rectangular shaped crackers using cutting dies because the cutting blade defining the rectangular crackers may be easily positioned adjacent and even abutting each other to minimize and eliminate such waste. Positioning non-symmetrical cutting blades on a cutter die in a fashion similar to rectangular shapes tends to result in increased waste and decreased throughout
With round shaped crackers, other difficulties need to be addressed to form an efficient cutting die. Because of their round shape, the adjacent edges of the cutting blades utilized for forming round dough shapes cannot be positioned to eliminate waste, thereby forming rework of dough during cutting due to the material between the cutting blades. Processes that use rotary dies generally anticipate such rework and include processing steps to separate and recycle the dough portions between the cutting blades. In general, cutting dies used to form cracker products having a round shape may result in up to about 30 to about 33 percent scrap material or rework, thus decreasing throughput, and increasing waste or adding expense due to complicated recycle and rework processes. In some instances, the circular shapes can be nested and closely spaced to reduce the waste/rework, but the constraint of the circular shapes tend to result in some level of waste or rework due to unused dough between the cutout die blades. Again, applying the techniques suitable for circular cutting blades to form cutters for non-symmetrical shapes tends to result in unacceptable waste and throughput.
While the designer of a cutting die will generally arrange the cutting blade shapes on the die surface to reduce unusable portions, the nature of the round or rectangular shapes as described above presents a relatively straight forward cutting blade arrangement process to produce the most efficient die configuration. With rectangular or round crackers, there is generally a single degree of freedom with die construction, which is positioning the cut out blades in the best possible nested or abutting configuration to minimize or eliminate un-used material between the cut-out blades. With non-symmetrical shapes and less conventional shapes, such as relatively thin, elbow-shaped cutouts, the traditional placement of cutting blades on a die surface to achieve the desired cutout is not a straight forward process due to many more degrees of freedom that must be considered. For instance, when forming a die to cut out non-symmetrical shapes and especially relatively thin non-symmetrical shapes such as elbow shapes, not only does the nesting configuration need to be selected, but the particular shape itself, any curvature of the shape, weight, thickness and width of the shape all must also be considered. Adjusting one of these parameters tends to substantially affect the configuration of the die. The difficulty lies in the constraint that the formed cracker needs to retain its non-symmetrical appearance, but still be formed using a robust cutting die and sheeting process to produce the cutout shapes with good through put and minimal breakage.

Methods for producing elbow-shaped crackers


Slits (36) are formed on a wall part (28) of a clip (16), and a locking piece (34) is made elastically deformable. Only the locking piece (34) is elastically deformed outward when a suspender (22) is locked in the locking piece (34). The locking piece (34) is restored when an upper face (22A) of the suspender (22) passes a top part of a locking claw (38) of the locking piece (34). The suspender (22) is thus prevented from coming out, and the suspender (22) is locked in the clip (16).

A seat cover is integrally installed on the surface of an automobile seat. For example, in Patent documents 1 and 2, a clip having a flat board-form base part, a pair of wall parts placed upright from the base part, and claw parts on inner faces of the wall parts, is embedded in a seat, and an anchoring member attached to the seat cover is locked in the claw parts, whereby the seat cover is installed on the seat.

Clip, connected clip, and seat cover covering structure


Colored lustrous pigments of superior quality are prepared by dry blending a metal oxide-coated mica nacreous pigment and a colorant lake with a blend adjuvant. The resulting blend exhibits a well dispersed, stable coloration, increased hydrophobicity and is particularly useful in cosmetic applications.

Colored lustrous pigments are known in which the colorant is selected from a wide variety of inorganic and organic coloring agents or dyestuffs and the lustrous pigment is a natural pearlescent material or synthetic pearlescent substance (also called nacreous pigments). Numerous difficulties were encountered in the prior art when making such colored lustrous pigments. For example, severe bleeding of the color on filtration of the coated product from the suspension, poor adherence of the dyestuff on the surface of the pigment such that the color could be washed off with water, difficulty in retaining luster with increased color intensity, and non-uniform distribution of the dyestuff on the pigment surface have been noted.
The foregoing is described in part in U.S. Pat. No. 4,084,983. That pigment relates to the use of titanium dioxide coated mica pigments to produce colors due to the interference phenomenon and additional color effects are achieved by coating organic dyes on the surface of those pigments. An improvement in the process of that patent is set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 4,968,351 in which is described a process of absorbing a soluble organic dyestuff at a coating pH on the surface of the metal oxide coated substrate nacreous pigment in an aqueous dispersion and subsequently absorbing a laking reagent thereon.
As apparent from the patents just described, the selection of treatment conditions to achieve a desired product can be difficult because, for example, the respective pigments and dyes have different cohesive forces. In addition, some pigments and dyes do not have sufficient dispersion stability and reaggregation of the pigment particles occurs and good coloration is not achieved.
A different approach is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,336,309. In that patent, the platy substrate and dye are subjected to high speed stirring for a predetermined period of time in the absence of a liquid medium, for the purpose of coating the surfaces of the platy pigment with the dye by forming an "ordered mixture". This method of achieving colored lustrous pigments by high speed dry stirring or blending requires that the stirring energy imparted to the mixture be critically adapted into the components being blended. For example, Example 3 and Comparative Example 2 of the patent combined the same titanium oxide-coated mica with the same organic pigment. When the stirring energy was 84.2 kJ and the stirring speed of 70 m/sec was employed, a colored pigment with dispersibility was achieved. However, when the energy was 20.7 kJ and the stirring speed of 20 m/sec was employed, the resulting product was found to contain aggregates of the organic pigment particles.
It has now been discovered that the dry blending process can be improved if certain selected adjuvants are also employed. The resulting product has increased hydrophobicity and requires a lower amount of energy to be used in the blending step. The process improves the adherence and distribution of the dye on the pearlescent pigment and the resulting product is a stable dispersion, particularly suitable for use in cosmetic applications. The selected adjuvant eases the blending process, improves the quality and stability of the colorant dispersion and is a "value added" component of the final product.
It is therefore the object of the present invention to provide a new colored lustrous pearlescent pigment and a method by which such pigment can be manufactured. This and other objects of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description.

Blended nacreous pigments, colorants and adjuvants


According to an embodiment, there is provided an image forming apparatus that forms a color image using a plurality of discolorable coloring materials and a plurality of non-discolorable coloring materials. In a case where insufficiency of at least one coloring material from among the plurality of discolorable coloring materials and the plurality of non-discolorable coloring materials is detected, the image forming apparatus performs color image formation using the plurality of discolorable coloring materials and the plurality of non-discolorable coloring material in combination.

Image forming apparatuses that form images using erasable coloring materials have been put into practical use. As the erasable coloring materials, coloring materials are known that become transparent by being heated. For example, an image forming apparatus forms an erasable full-color image by using erasable coloring materials of black (BK), cyan (C), magenta (M), and yellow (Y).
The above-described image forming apparatus cannot form an image when the coloring materials are insufficient. For example, in the image forming apparatus, an image forming operation is stopped even when only one of the coloring materials out of the erasable coloring materials of BK, C, M, and Y is insufficient.


The invention is an oven door construction and assembly in which the oven door construction and its part count are greatly reduced and simplified as is the method of assembly in the door. The door is assembled by placing interior door elements on an inner liner and using the hinges of the door to compressively mount the interior door elements to the liner to thereby eliminate a great number of fasteners typically used in this type of door construction.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention is directed to an oven door, and more specifically to a simplified construction and assembly of an oven door.
2. Description of the Related Art
Ovens and their general construction are well known. Typically, an oven comprises a structural frame defining a baking chamber with an open side, which is closed by an oven door. Generally, ovens in the home appliance industry can be categorized as either a built-in or a stand-alone oven. The built-in ovens are designed to be installed within a kitchen cabinet and, therefore, do not have an outer cabinet or skin attached to the frame. The stand-alone ovens do have a cabinet for aesthetic reasons and typically include a cook top provided as part of the cabinet.
In the home appliance industry, traditional oven door constructions generally comprise multiple components, such as an inner liner, window, intermediate door members or elements, an outer panel, and a handle, all of which are secured to one another by a relatively large number of screws. Self-cleaning ovens, will also include a double pane window in the oven door. Examples of this type of oven door construction and assembly are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,606,324, 4,390,767, and 3,996,710.
A disadvantage of this type of oven door construction is that each of the oven door elements is connected to each other and there is a large number of screws used, resulting in an undesirably large number of parts to assemble and a relatively complex assembly method. It is desirable to simplify the door construction and its assembly, especially in the home appliance industry where price competition is very great and any reduction in parts numbers or assembly time can result in a competitive advantage.

Oven door and method of assembly therefor


The present invention is to provide an improved resilient bra cup structure with adjustable stiffness or softness, wherein the bra cup structure having at least four layers comprising a layer of stiff knitted fabric, a layer of meshed gel, a layer of resilient staple fiber, and a layer of soft knitted fabric. The layer of meshed gel is subjected to a heating process for thermally bonded between the layer of stiff knitted fabric and the layer of resilient staple fiber. Furthermore, the thermally-bonded sandwiched fabric is bonded to the layer of soft knitted fabric for forming a compound fabric to make a bra cup.

Modern brassieres (hereinafter referred to as "bra cups") designed to accommodate the needs for comfort during wear, as well as the needs for support. Thus, these bra cups attempted to provide flexibility, freedom of movement, stretchability, and breast support in marketing. To provide these features, bra cups have been made out of flexible staple fiber or nonwoven fabric. These bra cups did not have enough stiffness to meet visual demand. The assembly of these bra cups was manufactured into final one-piece products, and often made of uniform material. However, bra cups with uniform materials did not meet purchasers' needs. Although they could comply with the needs for flexibility, manufactures for producing these bra cups often omitted the needs for visual appeal. The visual demand is also an important consideration in the production of a bra cup, and is the most important aspect in the purchasing decision made by a potential purchaser. Based on the market view this is the biggest difference on products. Besides, if the bra cups are made of only stiff material, the flexibility and comfort are not sufficient to users. While early bra cups have become more delicate, they may not have provided the complex function of comfort, flexibility, bra cup support and visual demand that are desired for the purchaser's needs.
Therefore, a need exists for an improved bra cup structure capable of providing complex function of comfort, flexibility, support and visual appeal. The invention will provide an improved bra cup which doesn't deform when pulled and dragged, and which has maximum comfort, flexibility, bra cup support, and visual appeal.


Systems and methods of determining a reporting configuration associated with a coverage level of a wireless device are provided. In one exemplary embodiment, a method performed by a wireless device (105, 200, 300, 400, 1000) in a wireless communication system (100) includes obtaining (503) information indicating a coverage level (113a-d) of the wireless device. Further, the method includes determining (507), from amongst different reporting configurations (115a-d) respectively associated with different coverage levels of the wireless device, the reporting configuration associated with the coverage level indicated by the obtained information. Also, the method includes reporting (511) a measurement result using the determined reporting configuration.

Machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, which is also referred to as machine-type communication (MTC), is used for establishing communication between machines as well as between machines and human-operated devices. This communication may include the exchange of data, signaling information, measurement data, configuration information, or the like. Further, the device size may vary from that of a wallet to that of a typical base station. M2M devices are quite often used for applications like sensing environmental conditions (e.g., temperature reading), metering or measurement (e.g., electricity usage), fault finding or error detection, or the like. In these applications, the M2M devices typically operate in a low-power, sleep mode and are very seldom active. When they are active, it is typically for a brief instance during a much longer periodic time duration depending upon the type of service (e.g., 200 milliseconds every 2 seconds, 500 milliseconds every 60 minutes). The M2M device may also perform measurement on other frequencies or other radio access technologies (RATs).
Furthermore, MTC devices are expected to be of lower cost/complexity. A lower cost/complexity user equipment (UE) envisaged for M2M operation may have smaller downlink or uplink maximum transport block size (e.g., 1000 bits), and reduced downlink channel bandwidth (e.g., 1.4 MHz for a data channel such as a physical shared data channel (PDSCH). A lower cost UE may also support half-duplex, frequency division duplex (HD-FDD) operation and may have features such as a single receiver at the UE, smaller downlink or uplink maximum transport block size (e.g. 1000 bits) and reduced downlink channel bandwidth of 1.4 MHz for data channel. The low cost UE may also be termed as low complexity UE.
The path loss between an M2M device and a base station may be very large in some scenarios such as an M2M device used as a sensor or metering device located in a remote location such as in the basement of a building. In these scenarios, the reception of a signal transmitted by a base station is very challenging due to path loss (e.g., the path loss may be 20 dB worse than for normal operation). In order to address these challenges, the reception of these signals on the uplink or downlink should be enhanced by using advanced techniques at the UE or radio network node (e.g., base station). These advanced techniques may include boosting transmit power, repeating signal transmission, adding redundancy to the transmit signal, or enhanced receiver techniques. In general, when employing any of these coverage enhancing techniques, the M2M device is considered to be operating in a coverage enhancing mode. A lower complexity UE (e.g., a UE having a single receiver) may also be capable of supporting enhanced coverage mode of operation.
Radio measurements done by the UE are typically performed on a serving cell as well as on a neighbor cell (e.g., narrowband (NB) cell, NB physical resource block (PRB)) over some known reference symbols or pilot sequences (e.g., narrowband cell-specific reference signal (NB-CRS), narrowband secondary synchronization signal (NB-SSS), narrowband primary synchronization signal (NB-PSS)). Further, the radio measurements are done on cells having an intra-frequency carrier and an inter-frequency carrier as well as on inter-RAT carriers depending on whether the UE supports that RAT. To enable inter-frequency and inter-RAT measurements, the network has to configure the frequency gaps to allow the UE to perform the radio measurement.
The measurements are done for various purposes such as mobility, positioning, self-organizing network (SON), minimization of drive tests (MDT), operation and maintenance (O&M), and network planning and optimization. In Long Term Evolution (LTE), these measurements include cell identification (i.e., physical cell identifier (PCI) acquisition), reference symbol received power (RSRP), reference symbol received quality (RSRQ), cell global identifier (CGI) acquisition, reference signal time difference (RSTD), UE RX-TX time difference measurement, and radio link monitoring (RLM) (e.g., out-of-sync/in-sync detection). Channel state information (CSI) measurements performed by the UE are used by the network such as for scheduling and link adaptation. CSI reports that are derived from the CSI measurements include a channel quality indicator (CQI), a precoding matrix index (PMI), and a rank indicator (RI). Further, these measurements may be performed on reference signals such as a cell-specific reference signal (CRS), a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS), or a demodulation reference signal (DMRS).
In order to identify an unknown cell (e.g., a new neighbor cell), the UE has to acquire the timing of that cell and eventually the physical cell identifier (PCI). For cell search and cell identification in legacy LTE, the #0 and #5 downlink subframes carry synchronization signals (e.g., the primary synchronization signal (PSS) and the secondary synchronization signal (SSS)). Similarly, the synchronization signals used for Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IOT) are referred to as NB-PSS and NB-SSS. However, their periodicity may be different from the LTE legacy synchronization signals. After cell search and cell identification in LTE, the UE also measures RSRP or RSRQ of the newly identified cell and may report the measurement to the network node.
For the NB-IoT RAT, 504 PCIs are available. The measurements are performed in all radio resource control (RRC) states (i.e., RRC idle and connected states). In the RRC connected state, the measurements are used by the UE for one or more tasks such as for reporting the results to the network node. In the RRC idle state, the measurements are used by the UE for one or more tasks such as for cell selection or cell reselection.
The objective of the NB-IOT industry standard is to specify a radio access for cellular IOT based, to a great extent, on a non-backward-compatible variant of Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA), which addresses improved indoor coverage, support for a massive number of low throughput devices, low delay sensitivity, ultra-low device cost, low device power consumption and an optimized network architecture. The NB-IOT carrier bandwidth (i.e., Bw2) is 200 kHz. For LTE, the operating bandwidths (i.e., Bw1) are 1.4 MHz, 3 MHz, 5 MHz, 10 MHz, 15 MHz, 20 MHz, etc. In addition, NB-IoT supports three different deployment scenarios. First, stand-alone operation utilizes, for example, the spectrum currently being used by the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) and the Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) RAN systems, which is collectively referred to as GERAN, as a replacement of one or more GSM carriers. In principle, it operates on any carrier frequency that is neither within the carrier of another system nor within the guard band of another system's operating carrier. The other system may be another NB-IOT operation or any other RAT (e.g., LTE). Second, guard band (i.e., guard bandwidth) operation utilizes the unused resource blocks within an LTE carrier's guard-band. As an example, for an LTE bandwidth of 20 MHz (i.e., Bw1=20 MHz or 100 resource blocks (RBs)), the guard band operation of NB-IOT may be anywhere outside the central 18 MHz LTE bandwidth but within the 20 MHz LTE bandwidth. Third, in-band operation (i.e., in-bandwidth operation) utilizes RBs within a normal LTE carrier. More generally, the operation of one RAT within the bandwidth of another RAT is also referred to as in-band operation. For instance, for an LTE bandwidth of 50 RBs (i.e., Bw1=10 MHz or 50 RBs), NB-IOT operation over one RB within the 50 RBs is referred to as in-band operation.
In NB-IOT for all three scenarios, the downlink transmission is based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) with 15 kHz subcarrier spacing and the same symbol and cyclic prefix (CP) durations as for legacy LTE. For uplink transmission, both multi-tone transmissions based on single carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) and single-tone transmission with either 3.75 kHz or 15 kHz subcarrier spacing are supported. This means that the physical waveforms for NB-IoT in the downlink and partly in the uplink are similar to the corresponding waveforms in legacy LTE.
In the downlink, NB-IOT supports both master information broadcast and system information broadcast, which are carried by different physical channels. For in-band operation, it is possible for an NB-IoT UE to decode a narrowband physical broadcast channel (NPBCH) without knowing the legacy PRB index. Further, NB-IoT supports both a narrowband physical downlink control channel (NPDCCH) and a narrowband physical downlink shared channel (NPDSCH). In addition, the operation mode of NB-IOT must be indicated to the UE, and currently Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) consider this indication by means of narrowband secondary synchronization signal (NSSS), narrowband master information block (NB-MIB), or perhaps other downlink signals.
Narrowband reference signals (NRSs) are separate from the legacy LTE CRS but the design principles are similar. For instance, NRSs do not overlap with legacy CRS or PDCCH, may be turned off in subframes when NPDSCH/NPSCCH is not transmitted, and the subcarriers used are derived from PCI. Further, downlink synchronization signals consist of a primary synchronization signal (NPSS) transmitted in subframe number five in every radio frame, and a secondary synchronization signal (NSSS) transmitted in subframe number nine.
Furthermore, NB-IoT supports multi-PRB operation as described in 3GPP Release-13. In this scenario, NPSS, NSSS, PBCH, and system information are only broadcast on one or more anchor PRBs and upon connection setup, UEs may be assigned to carry out their connected sessions on other secondary PRBs that do not contain these signals. Therefore, UEs will monitor paging and perform random access and RRC connection setup on the anchor PRB, transmit user plane data on the secondary PRB, and once released to RRC idle mode, they will return to the anchor PRB unless directed otherwise. As such, UE measurements based on the previously mentioned physical channels cannot be performed on the secondary PRB. However, the anchor PRB and the secondary PRB may belong to different deployment scenarios. For instance, the anchor PRB may be in the guard band whereas the secondary PRB is in-band, in which case there are only NRS reference symbols available on the anchor-PRB whereas both NRS and legacy CRS are available on the secondary-PRB.
Further, some PRBs may be power boosted for the in-band deployment scenario and typically the anchor-PRB would be power boosted to ensure good reception of NPSS, NSSS, PBCH, and NPDCCH. An anchor PRB may also be referred to as a primary PRB, basic positioning reference signal (PRS), common signal PRS, main PRS, or the like. A secondary PRB may also be referred to as a companion PRS, booster PRS, data PRS, or the like. A PRB may also be referred to as a cell, NB cell, NB resource, resource block (RB), virtual RB (VRB), physical resource, or the like.
The low complexity and low cost UEs have different characteristics compared to legacy UEs. These characteristics result in some limitations. One such limitation is that these UEs have limited reporting capabilities compared to legacy UEs. For instance, the NB-IOT UE has only two bits (e.g., 4 values) that may be used for reporting the power headroom, compared to six bits (e.g., 64 values) for legacy LTE UEs. As such, the reported value may not reflect the actual power usage conditions in the NB-IoT UE (i.e., less accurate information is provided to the serving network node). Since the reported measurements are used by the network for operational tasks (e.g., scheduling, mobility, positioning), less accurate or less optimal scheduling decisions may be made by the network. Accordingly, there is a need for improved techniques for reporting a coverage level of a wireless device. In addition, other desirable features and characteristics of the present disclosure will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and embodiments, taken in conjunction with the accompanying figures and the foregoing technical field and background.
The Background section of this document is provided to place embodiments of the present disclosure in technological and operational context, to assist those of skill in the art in understanding their scope and utility. Unless explicitly identified as such, no statement herein is admitted to be prior art merely by its inclusion in the Background section.


The invention relates to a high voltage source to be coupled to an electrode arrangement for a dielectric barrier discharge plasma treatment. It has a high voltage transformer device including a primary and secondary inductor coupled via a magnetic circuit. A feed circuit including a power capacitor, the power capacitor coupled with the primary inductor and a first controllable conductor in series. A controller is arranged to intermittent switching of the first controllable conductor in on- and off-states; and a second controllable conductor is coupled in parallel to the primary windings; the controller arranged to switch the second controllable conductor to a conducting on-state when the first controllable conductor is in an on-state to short the resonating current in the primary inductor.

Cold plasmas have considerable potential for, amongst others, skin conditioning, disinfection of skin and wound healing. However, available plasma sources lack the possibility to treat larger areas, to control plasma properties and/or the possibility to adapt the shape of the plasma to the shape of the object to be treated (e.g. a foot).                Cold plasmas allow efficient and painless treatment of living tissue, even in microscopic openings, without damaging healthy tissue.        The bacterial response to plasma application is almost instantaneous (few seconds).
From U.S. Pat. No. 9,005,188 and EP2670477 flexible mesh electrodes are known with a structured surface of a plurality of spaced apart projections from the surface to form air-guiding areas where the plasma is generated. A problem associated with these devices is the high voltage (HV) oscillations, that is caused by irregular discharges of the plasma. This poses problems for electromagnetic compatibility. It is found that the plasma pad itself is the biggest source of radiation because high voltage is applied to an open mesh that will act as a radio antenna emitting electromagnetic radiation. The pulsed operation of the plasma will be briefly explained here with reference to the cold plasma device shown in FIG. 1. The plasma may be powered by repetitive, short high-voltage pulses (ns-μs duration, up to a few 100 kHz repetition rate). A high voltage source 600 is provided for driving the planar electrode. The high voltage source 600 drives the planar electrode in a pulsed voltage in a range of 3-8 kV, in a range of 0.5-100 kHz, and a pulse duration in a range of 1 nano to 150 micro second. This allows for a pulse rate that substantially provides a micro discharge wherein electrical current through the object to be treated (skin, human body) will only flow during the time that the plasma is on (which is typically equal to the HV pulse duration). In between the pulses, the plasma is not active, and no current flows through the skin.
The pulsed operation of the plasma enables control over the power of the plasma by means of the pulse repetition rate. In this way, the plasma power can be controlled and adjusted without affecting the plasma properties. For a device that is to be used in home and medical care environments the power circuit for generating a high voltage, in combination with the plasma on an open pad electrode, can produce a lot of interference. One of the known power circuits is an oscillating high voltage circuit. FIG. 3 shows an example of such a pulsed high voltage circuit which is highly oscillating circuit as the leakage inductance of the transformer T1 resonates with capacitor C1. It is an aim to improve the circuit characteristics, in order to reduce the generation of unwanted oscillations that produce electromagnetic interference, in particular in a range of 50 MHz. However, a pulsed high voltage circuit of the type as disclosed therein is not capable of providing pulsed power, necessary for igniting a plasma suitable for treatment of tissue.

EMC control for pulsed high voltage source of a plasma device for medical treatment


A welding system comprising a welding-type power source and a protective cover for the welding-type power source. The protective cover may be comprised of a synthetic fabric and a polymeric fluid barrier. The protective cover may have a member secured to the synthetic fabric to enable a user to grip the member to lift the cover from the welding-type power source. The protective cover may have a plurality of eyelets to enable the cover to be drawn against the welding-type power source. The protective cover may comprise a portion adapted to receive an exhaust pipe of the welding-type power source. The portion of the cover adapted to receive the exhaust pipe may comprise a heat-resistant synthetic fabric.

The present invention relates generally to the field of welding, and more particularly to a cover for a welding-type power source.
Arc welding is a process in which an electric arc is maintained between an electrode and a metal workpiece. The heat generated by the arc produces localized melting of the metal workpiece, forming a puddle of molten metal. The electrode may be a solid metal rod or a flexible wire. A torch typically is used to direct the electrode towards the metal workpiece to be welded. When the electrode comes in close proximity to or touches the metal workpiece, an electrical circuit is completed and electricity flows from the power source through the welding cable, the welding torch, the workpiece, and ground cable back to the power source. A filler material may be fed into the weld puddle when it is desired to add additional material to the weld. The weld puddle and the area surrounding the weld puddle may be protected from the atmosphere by an inert gas to prevent rapid oxidation of the weld and the surrounding metal.
Typically, the electricity for the arc welding process is provided by a power source through a welding cable coupled to the torch. A ground cable typically is used to electrically couple a metal workpiece to the power source. Some welding systems are connected to an external source of power, while others are adapted with an engine operable to drive a power source to enable the system to produce its own power. Many different types of power sources are used in arc welding. In addition, because welding, induction heating, and plasma cutting require similar high power outputs, similar power sources may be used for arc welding, induction heating, and plasma cutting.
These welding-type power sources are typically portable and are frequently exposed to the environment. A canvas cover may be used to protect a welding-type power source from the elements. These canvas covers typically are impregnated with a wax to form a barrier for water. However, the wax typically wears away or fails within a relatively short period of time. As a result, the canvas cover no longer forms a barrier to water, allowing mold and/or mildew to form on the cover. The mold and mildew may spread to the power source. In addition, a canvas cover, even when new, has an unpleasant odor. Furthermore, the heat of the exhaust of the machine may damage a canvas cover for an engine-driven welding machine, even if placed on the welding machine after the engine is turned off.
A need exists for a cover for a welding-type power source that will maintain its resistance to water and prevent mold and mildew from forming. In addition, a need exists for a cover for an engine-driven welding machine that, at least the portion of the cover adjacent the exhaust system, is heat and/or flame resistant. A need also exists for a cover that may easily be secured to the welding-type power source.


Methods, computer-readable mediums, and systems are provided. In one embodiment, a method detects at least one faulty X-ray detector signal and adjusts a conveyor speed and/or a gantry speed in accordance with the detection to increase information for image reconstruction. In another embodiment, a method detects a high volume time. Upon detection of the high volume time conveyor speed and gantry speed is increased during the high volume time. After expiration of the high volume time, the conveyor speed and gantry speed is reduced. In yet other embodiments, the computer-readable mediums and systems are also provided which perform similar features recited by the above methods.

1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to X-ray detector scanning and more particularly, to methods, computer-readable mediums, and systems for increasing efficiency in computed tomography ("CT") scanning.
2. Description of the Related Art
In some known computed tomography ("CT") imaging system configurations, an X-ray source projects a fan-shaped or a cone-shaped beam, which is collimated to hit a linear or two dimensional array of detectors. The X-ray beam passes through an item being imaged. The beam, after being attenuated by the item, impinges upon an array of radiation detectors. The intensity of the attenuated radiation beam received at the detector array is dependent upon the attenuation of an X-ray beam by the item. Each detector element of the array produces a separate electrical signal that is a measurement of the beam intensity at the detector location. The intensity measurements from all the detectors are acquired separately to produce a transmission profile.
Sometimes information from a detector will not be received for conversion into a CT image (e.g., due to a bad detector or lack of transmission of an output signal derived from an output of the detector(s)). Typically, when a CT image is generated using information from less than the appropriate number of detectors the generated image does not have the desired resolution. In an effort to acquire proper resolution, the scanner is typically placed "out of service" until it is repaired (e.g., by replacing a detector(s) in the detector array or replacing the detector array); or an interpolation is performed which includes the bad detector. However, interpolation techniques are only an approximation ("a guesstimate") of what the information gathered by the bad detector should be and typically do not account for a significant difference between the bad detector and adjacent detectors used in the interpolation.
In addition, there are times when the X-ray scanner does not scan fast enough to keep up with scanning backlog. Increasing the scanning rate of the X-ray scanner can decrease the life of the scanner and its components. For example, when the rotational velocity of the gantry is increased there is an increase in load force placed on the gantry main bearing. This increased rotational loading causes additional load stress, which reduces bearing life in a disproportional manner. In addition, increasing the rotational rate of the gantry can also reduce the life of the charging capacitors.
When a scanner is out of service, a disruption in an ability to use the scanner creates delays and quite often a backlog of people waiting to utilize the scanner. In addition, increasing scanning rate in existing scanning systems diminishes the life of the scanner. Thus, there is a need to diminish scanning backlog and better utilize scanner resources.

Methods, systems, and apparatuses for increasing efficiency in computed tomography detection


A system and method provides for autonomously driving a vehicle to a particular location during an emergency event. The method enables the vehicle to be driven autonomously. As a result of the emergency event, an input is provided to generate a request signal. Based on the request signal, the method 1) instructs the self-driving system to drive the vehicle to the particular location, and 2) sends, via an Internet connection, data to an entity remote from the vehicle.

There are times when an operator of an autonomously driven vehicle may have a health problem while traveling in the vehicle, preventing the operator from properly instructing the vehicle to drive to a place for the operator to receive treatment. Also, when a self-driving vehicle is stolen, there is currently a way to determine where that vehicle is located, but simply locating the stolen vehicle is not efficient, since law enforcement must be given this information and then must travel to such location to retrieve the stolen vehicle.
Thus, there is a need to provide a system and method for a autonomously driven vehicle such that during an emergency health situation of an operator, the system will self-drive the vehicle to the nearest treatment center and if the vehicle is stolen, will self-drive the vehicle to a particular location, such as a police station.

System and method for theft and medical emergency event for self-driving vehicle


A remotely operated sun visor is disclosed. The visor includes first and second rotational mechanisms, a sun visor body, controller unit, and power switch. The first rotational mechanism is affixed to and oriented perpendicular to the second rotational mechanism. The sun visor body is torsionally coupled to the first rotational mechanism which thereby rotates the sun visor body about a first axis when activated. The vehicle mounting plate is torsionally coupled to the second rotational mechanism, which thereby rotates the sun visor body about a second axis when activated. The first axis is oriented perpendicular to the second axis. The first and second rotational mechanisms are each communicatively coupled to the controller unit. The first and second rotational mechanisms are positioned within a motor housing. The first rotational mechanism includes a first rod and a second rod positioned opposite the first rod. The second rotational mechanism includes a third rod.

Driving in the sun may be an enjoyable experience, but it can also lead to a hazard if the driver's view is compromised by a glaring sun. This glare can make it much more difficult to see the road ahead and potential hazards, leading to an increased likelihood of accidents. Sun visor is an effective apparatus to protect the driver or front passenger from sun rays, such that the sun does not shine directly into the occupants' eyes. Almost every automobile is equipped with at least two sun visors that are positioned adjacent to a top portion of the windshield, one at the driver's side and another at the front passenger's side. Under certain lighting conditions, the driver may deploy the sun visor by rotating the sun visor about a rotational axis from a non-deployed position to a deployed position to prevent part of light transmission from entering the cabin, thereby enabling the driver to focus on vehicle operations.
However, the occupants have to manually move the sun visors up and down or from the front windshield to the side windows. This course of actions inevitably distracts the driver's attention and adversely influence the driving safety, especially when driving at a high speed. Meanwhile, the occupant is only allowed to easily manipulate the sun visor in front of him. For example, it is almost impossible for the driver who is driving to move the passenger side sun visor. Moreover, it may be difficult for tall drivers to manually manipulate the sun visor due to cramped space in the cabin.
Unless otherwise specifically noted, articles depicted in the drawings are not necessarily drawn to scale.


A partial-slot card guide installation tool comprises two opposing runners configured to register with grooves of a full-sized slot of a rack system, and two guides fixed relative to the two opposing runners. The two guides configured to receive a partial-slot card guide and position the partial-slot card guide within the full-sized slot to provide a partial-sized slot smaller than the full-sized slot within the full-sized slot.

Electronic devices may be used in many types of systems and/or applications, such as control systems, data processing systems, medical systems, telecommunication systems and/or communication networks. Electronic devices may include system controllers, servers and/or data acquisition systems, medical imaging systems, central office systems, and/or network devices, such as routers, switches, firewalls, and/or network address translators. For some applications it may be desirable to make electronic devices scalable. For example, a communication network may be expanded to accommodate new users, modified to accommodate new networking protocols and/or types of data traffic, and/or may be reconfigured in response to network attacks and/or natural disasters.
Scalable electronic devices may include a rack system designed to accommodate certain changes. For instance, an electronic device may be configured to include a chassis that accepts removable cards to provide flexibility for accommodating new application requirements. Examples of cards may take the form of removable cards or boards that are configured and adapted for use in an electronic device. In some examples, a card is capable of receiving data from another device and/or capable of making data available to another device.
Rack system systems for electronic components, such as network routers generally include a plurality of slots for individual cards. In some systems, cards that occupy only half of a full-size slot may also be used, such that two "half-size" cards may fit within a full slot. In order to facilitate mounting two half-size cards in a full-size slot, a half-slot card guide is first mounted at the center of the full-size slot to divide the full-size slot into two half-size slots.

Partial-slot card guide installation tool


A sling for a tactical weapon that at least partially surrounds the body of a human, has shoulder straps with adjustable shoulder pads, a resilient back strap in one embodiment and no back strap in another embodiment. The front waste band has a buckle for waste band central detachment in one embodiment and is has no central detachment in another embodiment. One embodiment has the back straps crossed and attached together at the cross over with side waste band buckles on each end thereof with length adjustable straps passing through the buckles with the opposite end attached to rings on the front waste strap.

The invention is directed to slings for supporting long guns and more particularly for the support of tactical weapons for individuals wearing body armor.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,669,170 by inventor Terry Bruce Norris teaches a long gun sling with one shoulder strap and a waist belt with a two length adjustable buckles. Gun mounting straps spaced apart and fixedly attached to the shoulder strap. Each of the mounting straps have a buckle connector for interconnecting the ends together. The long gun cannot be utilized while attached to the sling.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,642,847 by inventor Lttillo Alexander DeMeo et al. teaches a firearm support having a waist and an under the arm strap or belt surrounding the body of the wearer. The firearm cannot be utilized while attached to the support.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,964,553 by inventor Donald J. Glynn teaches a holster member for receiving the butt end of the long gun and is supported by a waist belt. A full and a partial shoulder strap. The partial strap is connected to the full strap intermediate its ends. Both ends of the two shoulder straps are fixedly attached to the waist belt at one end and a distal end of the full strap is removably attached to the waist belt and is removable to support on end of the long gun.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,869,074 by inventor Raymond F. Roach teaches a shotgun/rifle holder having a waist strap buckle length adjustable and a shoulder strap. A gun butt holder is suspended from the belt by a chain and the forestock or barrel is held to the shoulder strap by means of a clip adjustably attached thereto. There is no teaching for firing the shotgun/rifle from a holder attached position.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,430,828 by inventor M. R. Gregson teaches a gun sling that is shoulder supported with a loose strap removably attached to the gun butt via a butt case. The gun is attached to the loose strap by a short flexible line with a snap fastener interconnecting the line with the loose strap. A belt buckle secures the loose strap through the snap fastener.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,501,074 by inventor R. D. Emerick teaches a gun carrier with a trough like cradle for holding a rifle or shotgun and means for holding the gun in the trough. The gun can be readily released from the cradle.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,258,182 by inventor M. H. McDonald teaches a combination gun carrying harness and a flexible sling for carrying sporting firearms.
The drawbacks of the above patented slings are that they do not allow the weapon to be both supported and fired while attached to the sling or quickly disconnected from the sling as maybe required by the user.
There is as continuing need for an improved tactile weapon sling that enables the user to support the weapon from the shoulders when not in use, shoot the weapon in any firing position while attached to the sling or quickly release the weapon from the sling as desired.

Multi-purpose, multi-weapon tactical sling/harness


A three-dimensional semiconductor device is provided, comprising: a plurality of ground selection line (GSL) sections separately formed on a substrate, the GSL sections being electrically insulated from each other and extended in parallel to each other, and the GSL sections extending along a first direction; a plurality of stacked structures vertically formed on the GSL sections on the substrate, and each stacked structure comprising alternated semiconductor layers and insulating layers; string selection lines (SSLs) separately formed on the stacked structures, and the string selection lines extending along the first direction; and bit lines disposed above the SSLs and extending along a second direction, the bit lines arranged parallel to each other and in perpendicular to the SSLs and GSL sections, wherein a plurality of memory cells of memory layers respectively defined by the stacked structures, the SSLs, the GSL sections and the bit lines correspondingly.

Field of the Invention
The disclosure relates in general to a three-dimensional (3D) semiconductor device and method of manufacturing the same, and more particularly to a vertical channel (VC) type 3D semiconductor device and method of manufacturing the same.
Description of the Related Art
A nonvolatile semiconductor memory device is typically designed to securely hold data even when power is lost or removed from the memory device. Various types of nonvolatile memory devices have been proposed in the related art. Also, manufactures have been looking for new developments or techniques combination for stacking multiple planes of memory cells, so as to achieve greater storage capacity. For example, several types of multi-layer stackable thin-film transistor (TFT) NAND-type flash memory structures have been proposed. Various semiconductor devices with three-dimensional (3D) stacked structures, having single-gate unit cells, double gate unit cells or surrounding gate unit cells, have been provided.
It is desirable to develop a semiconductor device with 3D stacked structure not only with larger number of multiple planes being stacked to achieve greater storage capacity, but also with memory cells having excellent electrical properties (such as reliability of data storage and speed of operation), so that the memory cells can be erased and programmed effectively. Typically, NAND Flash page size is proportional to the number of the bit lines (BL). Accordingly, when the semiconductor device is scaled down, not only the decreased cost but also the increased read/write data rate are achieved due to the increasing of parallel operation, which leads to higher data rate. However, the conventional semiconductor device usually suffers from reading disturbance that is one of critical factor which affects device window and performance.

Three-dimensional semiconductor device and method of manufacturing the same


Systems and devices for use as optical transceivers and amplifiers in optical networks. An optical transceiver/amplifier has two optical signal circulators, each of which receives one incoming signal and transmits one outgoing optical signal. Each circulator combines its incoming and outgoing signals on to a bidirectional optical connection internal to the transceiver amplifier. Between the two circulators are a pump laser, an optical coupler to couple the pump laser's power into the bidirectional connection, and an amplifying medium for amplifying the bidirectional signals internal to the transceiver amplifier. The amplifying medium may be an Erbium doped fiber which would amplify any optical signal passing through it. In one embodiment, the transceiver amplifier is in a self-contained package that is pluggable into existing equipment using pre-existing ports and interfaces.

The field of telecommunications experienced an explosive growth in the last decade of the 20th century. Optical networking came to the forefront as being the technology of choice for some long-haul communications applications.
One of the advancements in optical networking during that time was the continuing development of the optical amplifier. Currently, optical amplifiers are widely used in today's fiber optic networks to amplify weakened signals. The invention of the optical amplifier made wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) possible. With optical amplifiers, repeaters can simultaneously amplify transmission signals transmitted through multiple optical wavelengths without the need to demultiplex the signals, convert each signal into an electrical signal, regenerate and then remultiplex the signals.
However, with the advancement in technology and materials, the cost of amplifiers has dropped dramatically, almost 10 times in the past 8 years. This steep decline in price renders single wavelength amplification a viable solution in certain applications such as those which involve extremely high data rates. These high data rates may lead to transmitters outputting weaker signals compared to lower data rates.
In these and other transmission systems, optical amplifiers have always been a fixed component. If the amplifier becomes defective, the whole circuit card containing the amplifier needs to be replaced.
Optical amplifiers also have a slight drawback in that they are uni-directional by nature. In most amplifiers, there is an input and an output. However, in the real world, signals propagate in a minimum of one fiber pair—one fiber for east to west, and another fiber for west to east.
Optical amplifiers also have another drawback—they have a weakness which causes optical transients when its input undergoes a sudden change. In a previous invention, there was disclosed a method to counter such optical transients (most often caused by fiber a cut). The large transient is especially damaging to optical receivers due to the limited range accepted by the receiver. For example, a 10 Gigabit receiver has an upper receiving power limit of −8 dBm. However, when there is an optical transient, the peak power may reach well beyond 0 dBm momentarily, causing the receiver not only to become saturated, but also causing the destruction of the receiver's internal semiconductor structure by the large pulse.
There is therefore a need for devices and systems which mitigate if not overcome the shortcomings of the prior art.