A tape cassette providing a case body and a couple of hubs set rotatably in the case body, around which a tape-like member is wound, and a combination structure of the tape cassette and a driving device. The hub members provide a through hole in which a rotative driving spindle of a driving device is to be inserted through an insertion opening and a plurality of spline projections formed at an interior of the through hole, and the spline projection widens toward the insertion opening gradually. When the hub members are rotatively driven under an engagement of the spline projection thereof with an engagement projection of the rotative driving spindle of the driving device, since the hub member is forced toward the insertion opening, the hub member is moved toward the insertion opening, and it is consequently rotated stably at the location where it is moved to.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tape cassette for digital recording/reproducing, such as DDS (digital data storage) and DAT (digital audio tape), and to a combination structure of the tape cassette and a driving device for driving the tape cassette.
2. Related Background Art
The conventional DAT or DDS tape cassette for digital recording/reproducing, in a case body consisting of an upper case and a lower case thereof, supports a couple of hubs around which a tape is wound so as to be rotatable, and includes a couple of holes in the lower case into which the driving spindles of the recording/reproducing device are inserted, and a slider which covers the couple of the holes slidably. The couple of hubs around which a tape is wound is arranged between the upper sheet and the lower sheet. For stabilization of tape running in the tape cassette, for instance, in a gazette of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-73758, it is laid open to provide projections and recesses on the friction sheets pinching a couple of the hubs to be rotated, around which a tape is wound.
In a gazette of Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-Open No. 7-41775, it is also laid open to provide a spring member which pushes the hubs pinched between the friction sheets, to the lower case.
Although DAT or DDS tape cassette for digital recording/reproducing is used for music and data storage of a computer, recently, it is in need of bigger capacity of memory for data storage. On the cassette tape for such a usage, when the driving spindles of the driving device is engaged with the hubs or during tape running, even if the locations of the hubs are slightly slid vertically, it will be a problem to make an instability of tape running. If such problem arises, there may be a possibility of an error.
Against such problem, even if projections and recesses are provided on the friction sheet as laid open in the gazette of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-73758, since such the projections and recesses are provided in order to prevent from disarrangement of tape winding, not to set the hubs to a regular position, a sufficient effect may not be obtained. Although it is possible to utilize a spring member as laid open in the gazette of Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-Open No. 7-41775, since a quantity of parts may be increased, and assembling processes may consequently be increased, it will make a cost up. In addition, it needs a space for arrangement of the spring members, and therefore makes a difficulty to keep the space in the tape cassette.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a tape cassette capable of preventing an error from occurring during recording or reproducing, by positioning the hubs to the regular position during tape running thereby stabilizing of the tape running, and a combination structure of the tape cassette and a driving device for driving the tape cassette.
According to the aspect of the invention, the tape cassette is provided with a case body, and a couple of hub members stored rotatably in the case body, around which a tape-like member is wound, wherein the hub members includes through holes for insertion of a rotative driving spindles of the driving device through an insertion openings and a plurality of spline projections formed at an interior of the through holes, and the spline projections widen toward the insertion opening gradually.
According to the tape cassette, since the spline projections in the through hole of the hub member is slanted so as to widen toward the insertion opening, when the rotative driving spindles of the driving device engage the spline projections widened toward the insertion opening, and the hub members are rotatably driven, the force toward the insertion opening is exerted on the hub members, so that the hub members are moved toward the insertion opening and the hub members are rotatably driven stably at the moved position. Thus, the tape running at the hub members is stabilized, an error is prevented from occurring during recording and reproducing, accordingly. Further, a sheet part may be arranged between the case body and the hub pats.
During rotative driving of the hub members with the driving device, a side face of the engagement projection of the rotative driving spindles contacts with a side face of each the spline projection, and the hub members are moved toward the insertion opening and rotated thereat.
According to another aspect of the invention, a combination structure of the tape cassette and the driving device is, of a combination structure of the case body, the tape cassette including a couple of hub members stored rotatably in the case, around which a tape-like member is wound, and the driving device including the rotative driving spindles for rotative driving of the hub members when the tape cassette is set therein, the combination structure includes the hub member including a through hole for insertion of the rotative driving spindle through the insertion opening and a plurality of spline projections formed at an interior of the through hole, the spline projections widening toward the insertion opening gradually, and engagement projections for engaging with the spline projections and arranged at the rotative driving spindle.
According to the combination structure, when the engagement projections of the rotative driving spindle of driving device engage the spline projections slanted so as to widen toward the insertion opening of the through hole, the force toward the insertion opening is exerted on the hub members, the hub members are therefore moved toward the insertion opening, and the hub member is rotatably driven stably at the moved position. Thus, the hub member is not moved in any direction in which the through hole extends, during driving in the driving device, the tape running is therefore stabilized, and an error is prevented from occurring during recording and reproducing accordingly.
By provision of the engagement projection of the rotative diving spindle so as to match the form of spline projection, the hub member is forced toward the insertion opening more strictly, and the tape running with the hub members is therefore stabilized more steadily. During rotative driving of the hub members with the driving device, a side face of each the engagement projection of the rotative driving spindle contacts with a side face of each the spline projection, and the hub member is moved toward the insertion opening and rotated thereat.
Each the spline projection includes a tapered portion at the insertion opening end, and each the engagement projection of the rotative driving spindle has a wide portion in correspondence with the tapered portion, and during rotative driving of the hub members by the driving device, each the wide portion contacts with the tapered portion to control the moved position of the hub member. In such a manner, the position of the hub members, which are moving during the rotative driving, may be regulated and adjusted.

Tape cassette and combination structure of the tape cassette and driving device


A new gate attachment for mounting to the side walls of a load bed of a vehicle. The inventive device includes an elongate upper cross bar and an elongate lower cross bar spaced apart from the upper cross bar. A plurality of spaced apart elongate ribs are extended between the upper and lower cross bars. A pair of insertion arms are extended from the upper cross bar. Each of the insertion arms has a lower terminal end which are adapted for insertion into a post hole of side wall of load bed of a vehicle.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to accessories for mounting to the load bed of a vehicle and more particularly pertains to a new gate attachment for mounting to the side walls of a load bed of a vehicle.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of accessories for mounting to the load bed of a vehicle is known in the prior art. More specifically, accessories for mounting to the load bed of a vehicle heretofore devised and utilized are known to consist basically of familiar, expected and obvious structural configurations, notwithstanding the myriad of designs encompassed by the crowded prior art which have been developed for the fulfillment of countless objectives and requirements.
Known prior art accessories for mounting to the load bed of a vehicle include U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,265,993; 5,259,712; 5,044,682; 4,917,429; 3,330,584; and 2,166,918.
While these devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives and requirements, the aforementioned patents do not disclose a new gate attachment. The inventive device includes an elongate upper cross bar and an elongate lower cross bar spaced apart from the upper cross bar. A plurality of spaced apart elongate ribs are extended between the upper and lower cross bars. A pair of insertion arms are extended from the upper cross bar. Each of the insertion arms has a lower terminal end which are adapted for insertion into a post hole of side wall of load bed of a vehicle.
In these respects, the gate attachment according to the present invention substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in so doing provides an apparatus primarily developed for the purpose of mounting to the side walls of a load bed of a vehicle.


A chip having a bump layout suitable for the chip on glass technology and a driving IC includes a plurality of first bumps and a plurality of second bumps for electrically connecting to a glass substrate of a displayer. The first and second bumps are disposed on a surface of the chip and near two opposite long sides of the chip respectively. The ratio of the total contacting area of the first bumps to that of the second bumps is between 0.8 and 1.2. Thus, a pressure applied on the chip and the glass substrate of the displayer for connection can be uniformly exerted all over the chip, and the stability of the connection is therefore improved.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a chip having a driving integrated circuit, and especially a chip suitable for chip on glass (COG) technology.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In COG packing techniques, a driving chip is directly disposed on a glass substrate of a display device to output a needed voltage or a signal to pixels of the display device. Accordingly, the driving chip can control the direction of liquid crystal molecules, and can therefore control the displayed colors in each pixel of the display device. The driving chip can also be called a driving integrated circuit (driving IC), since the driving chip usually uses an integrated circuit therein for working. In a COG process, the driving chip and the bottom glass substrate of the display device are directly connected by an anisotropic conductive film (ACF) or a non-conductive film (NCF), so that input/output bumps of the driving chip can be electrically connected to the metal traces of the bottom glass substrate.
ACF generally consists of non-conductive glue and conductive particles mixed in the non-conductive glue. ACF can affix the driving chip to the glass substrate, and also fill gaps formed between the bumps and the metal traces for adhering, supporting and electrically connecting the driving chip and the bottom glass substrate. However, the cost of the display device fabricated by ACF process cannot be effectively decreased, due to the large expense of the conductive particles. If NCF is directly adopted to connect most kinds of drive chips and the glass substrate of the display device, bad indentations occur in the bumps of the driving chip, leading to a poor electronic connection and even a poor display image of the display device. This is because the NCF is not electrically conductive, so the NCF is unsuitable for filling the gaps formed between the bumps and the metal traces, and it is best that there are no gaps between the bumps and the metal traces. As a result, the NCF process cannot be applied to all kinds of drive chips.


An encoding method and apparatus for encoding multi-channel signals employed in, for example, a stereo system of a video disc player, a video tape recorder, a motion picture film picture system, or a so-called multi-surround acoustic system. Five channels, namely the center (C) channel, left (L) channel, right (R) channel, left surround (SL) channel and the right surround (SR) channel, for example, are handled in common depending upon frequency characteristic of digital audio signal and the targeted playback environment, and encoding is done while the combinations of the channels to be handled in common are altered. High compression may be achieved with the use of pre-existing encoding and decoding units by handling the channels in common without dependency upon the degree of correlation of multi-channel digital data.

This invention relates to an encoding method and apparatus for encoding multi-channel signals employed in, for example, a stereo system of a video disc player, a video tape recorder, a motion picture film picture system, or a so-called multi-surround acoustic system. The invention also relates to a corresponding decoding method and apparatus, and a recording medium.
There are a variety of techniques of high efficiency encoding of audio signals or speech signals. An example of these techniques is transform coding in which a frame of digital signals representing the audio signal on the time axis is converted by an orthogonal transform into a block of spectral coefficients representing the audio signal on the frequency axis.
There is also known a sub-band coding in which the frequency band of the audio signal is divided by a filter bank into a plurality of sub-bands without forming the signal into frames along the time axis prior to coding. In addition, there is known a combination of sub-band coding and transform coding, in which digital signals representing the audio signal are divided into a plurality of frequency ranges by sub-band coding, and transform coding is applied to each of the frequency ranges.
Among the filters for dividing a frequency spectrum into a plurality of equal-width frequency ranges include the quadrature mirror filter (QMF) as discussed in R.E. Crochiere, Digital Coding of Speech in Sub-bands, 55 Bell Syst. Tech J. No. 8 (1976). With such QMF filter, the frequency spectrum of the signal is divided into two equal-width bands. With the QMF, aliasing is not produced when the frequency bands resulting from the division are subsequently combined together. In "Polyphase Quadrature Filters-A New Subband Coding Technique", Joseph H. Rothweiler ICASSP 83, Boston, there is shown a technique of dividing the frequency spectrum of the signal into equal-width frequency bands. With the present polyphase QMF, the frequency spectrum of the signals can be divided at a time into plural equal-width frequency bands.
There is also known a technique of orthogonal transform including dividing the digital input audio signal into frames of a predetermined time duration, and processing the resulting frames using a discrete Fourier transform (DFT), discrete cosine transform (DCT) and modified DCT (MDCT) for converting the signal from the time axis to the frequency axis. Discussions on MDCT may be found in J. P. Princen and A. B. Bradley, "Subband Transform Coding Using Filter Bank Based on Time Domain Aliasing Cancellation", ICASSP 1987.
By quantizing the signals divided on the band basis by the filter or orthogonal transform, it becomes possible to control the band subjected to quantization noise and psychoacoustically more efficient coding may be performed by utilizing the so-called masking effects. If the signal components are normalized from band to band with the maximum value of the absolute values of the signal components, it becomes possible to effect more efficient coding.
In a technique of quantizing the spectral coefficients resulting from an orthogonal transform, it is known to use sub bands that take advantage of the psychoacoustic characteristics of the human auditory system. That is, spectral coefficients representing an audio signal on the frequency axis may be divided into a plurality of critical frequency bands. The width of the critical bands increase with increasing frequency. Normally, about 25 critical bands are used to cover the audio frequency spectrum of 0 Hz to 20 kHz. In such a quantizing system, bits are adoptively allocated among the various critical bands. For example, when applying adaptive bit allocation to the spectral coefficient data resulting from MDCT, the spectral coefficient data generated by the MDCT within each of the critical bands is quantized using an adoptively allocated number of bits.
There are presently known the following two bit allocation techniques. For example, in IEEE Transactions of Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, vol. ASSP-25, No. 4, August 1977, bit allocation is carried out on the basis of the amplitude of the signal in each frequency band.
In the bit allocation technique described in M. A. Krassner, The Critical Band Encoder- Digital Encoding of the Perceptual Requirements of the Auditory System, ICASSP 1980, the psychoacoustic masking mechanism is used to determine a fixed bit allocation that produces the necessary signal-to-noise ratio for each frequency band.
In the high-efficiency encoding system for audio signals making use of the above-mentioned subband coding or the like, such a system in which audio data is compressed to about 1/5 by taking advantage of the characteristics of the human hearing sense. In a system known as ATRAC (Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding, a trademark of Sony Corporation) used, for example, in the MiniDisc (trademark of Sony Corporation), a magneto-optical disc 64 mm in diameter is utilized, as well as an efficient encoding system of compressing audio data so that a quantity of data recorded on such magneto-optical disk becomes equal to about 1/5 of the original data.
In a stereo or multi-surround audio system for a motion picture film motion picture system, high definition television, video tape recorder or a video disc player, as well as the common audio equipment, the trend is toward handling audio or speech signals of a plurality of channels, e.g., four to eight, channels. It is therefore desired in this case to reduce the bit rate by way of high efficiency encoding.
Most compelling, when recording digital audio signals of eight channels, namely left channel, left center channel, center channel, right center channel, right channel, left surround channel, right surround channel and sub-woofer channel, on a motion picture film, a necessity arises for high efficiency encoding of reducing the bit rate. That is, an area sufficient to record eight channels of 16-bit linear-quantized audio data at a sampling frequency of 44.1 kHz is difficult to hold on the motion picture film, thus necessitating compression of the audio data.
The channels of the eight channel data recorded on the motion picture film are associated with a left speaker, a left center speaker, a center speaker, a right center speaker, a right speaker, a surround left speaker, a surround right speaker, and a sub-woofer speaker, which are disposed on the screen side where a picture reproduced from the picture recording area of motion picture films are projected by a projector. The center speaker is disposed at the center on the screen side, and serves to output sound reproduced from audio data of the center channel. The center speaker output is the most important reproduced sound, such as speech of an actor.
The sub-woofer speaker serves to output sound reproduced from audio data of a sub-woofer channel. The sub-woofer speaker effectively outputs sound which is sensed as vibrations rather than sound in low frequency range, such as, for example, the sound of an explosion. This is frequently used effectively in scenes of an explosion. The left speaker and the right speaker are disposed on left and right sides of the screen, and serve to output reproduced sound by audio data of left channel and reproduced sound by audio data of right channel, respectively. These left and right speakers provide a stereo sound effect. The left center speaker is disposed between the left speaker and the center speaker, and the right center speaker is disposed between the center speaker and the right speaker. The left center speaker outputs sound reproduced from audio data of the left channel, and the right center speaker outputs sound reproduced from audio data of the right center channel. These left and right center speakers perform auxiliary roles of the left and right speakers, respectively. Most important, in movie theaters having large screen and large number of persons to be admitted, there is the drawback that localization of sound image becomes unstable in dependency upon seat positions. However, the above-mentioned left and right center speakers are added to thereby exhibit effects in creating more realistic localization of the sound image.
In addition, the surround left and right speakers are disposed so as to surround the spectator's seats. These surround left and right speakers serve to respectively output sound reproduced sound from audio data of the surround left channel and sound reproduced from audio data of the surround right channel, and provide the effect of reverberation or an impression of being surrounded by hand clapping or a shout of joy. Thus it is possible to create sound images in more three-dimensional manner.
In addition, since defects are apt to take place on the surface of a motion picture film, if digital data is recorded as it is, data is frequently missing. Such a recording system cannot be employed from a practical point of view. For this reason, the abilities of error correcting code is very important.
Accordingly, with respect to data compression, it is necessary to carry out compression processing to such a degree that recording in the recording area on the film takes into consideration the bits added for an error correcting code.
In view of this consideration, in the method of compression processing of eight channels of digital audio data as described above, there is applied the high efficiency encoding system, such as the ATRAC system, which achieves high quality comparable to that of a CD by carrying out optimum bit allocation which takes into account the above-mentioned characteristics of the human hearing sense as described above, while compressing the 16-bit digital audio data to about 1/5 with the sampling frequency of 44.1 kHz.
However, the high efficiency encoding system for compressing the digital audio data to about 1/5 is the encoding system for a single channel. If this system is employed for encoding multi-channel audio data, it is not possible to achieve effective data encoding employing data interdependency among different channels or elements such as data or format characteristics of the respective channels.
On the other hand, since the directional perception of the human hearing sense tends to be unstable with respect to sound in the high frequency range, there is known a method of encoding data in common among respective channels in the high frequency range and to record the data thus encoded in common for diminishing the recording area. However, since the level difference can be perceived, even though the direction feeling of the sound becomes indefinite, it frequently occurs that changes in a sound field can be perceived by the hearer during multi-channel reproduction, particularly if the correlation among different channels is low.

Information encoding method and apparatus, information decoding apparatus and recording medium


The present invention relates to an electronic system and its corresponding method of determining the attributes of a Web page without downloading the Web page. The electronic system includes a first electronic system and a second electronic system. In the second electronic system, a keyword describing the contents of the Web page is added to a file. The first electronic system transmits a request to the second electronic system for the file. The second electronic system transmits the file to the first electronic system, where, based on the keyword, it is determined whether to download the Web page.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a system and method of classifying and retrieving the attributes of Web pages. More particularly, the present invention relates to pre-fetching a HyperText Transfer Protocol ("HTTP") header of a Web page and scanning for attributes embedded in the HTTP header.
2. Description of Related Art
Today, a user searching for Web pages on a particular topic inputs keywords into a search engine (such as ALTA VISTA.TM. or YAHOO.TM.) which searches for possible Web pages that contain the keywords. The search engine then "crawls" through every link and Web page that it can find and retrieves data that matches the keywords. The search engine then classifies and organizes the Web pages according to the raw number of times that the keywords appear in each Web page. That is, the search engine creates a massive database that keeps track of the number of times that each keyword occurred.
Over the last few years, it has been discovered that the current method of searching for Web pages has certain disadvantages. One disadvantage is narrowing down the retrieved data that is meaningful to a user. For example, this may occur when a user searching for "scholarships" (e.g., educational) finds a Web page containing a personal resume containing the word "scholarship". In addition, an increasing number of Web pages are rigged with hidden text. Thus, a Web page on the surface may appear meaningful to the user, but in reality is not pertinent. This defeats the whole organization of the Internet, especially when an increasing number of people are selling the content of Web pages for money.
Another disadvantage associated with the current method of searching for keywords in Web pages is the amount of time that it takes to search every Web page. A Web page may also take a long time to download since it typically contains, among other things, textual content, embedded graphics, and tables. This is especially annoying when a Web page that is downloaded does not pertain to the user's topic of interest.
Therefore, there is a need for a better way to classify and index the contents of a Web page such that the classification more accurately reflects the contents of the Web page and to retrieve the classification much faster than any other method used today.


A process for preparing potato chips and shoestring potatoes in which no additional fat content is added to the potato and none of the natural foodstuffs are removed. The process comprises the steps of slicing a potato to produce a plurality of potato slices or strips of the desired configuration and microwave heating the slices or strips for a period of about six to nine minutes to produce a product having substantially the same flavor, color, crispness and slightly greasy appearance as deep-fried potato chips or shoestring potatoes. The potato slices or strips can be steamed or baked prior to microwave heating to reduce the microwave heating time and can be subjected to a second microwave heating step to reduce the moisture content therein for a longer shelf life.

The present invention relates to a process for producing potato chips and shoestring potatoes, which have substantially the same flavor, color and crispness as well as a slightly greasy appearance similar to conventional deep-fried products but in which no fat content is added to the potato and no foodstuff is removed. Potato chips and shoestring potatoes are typically produced by deep frying thin slices or strips of raw potatoes in an oil. The deep frying process reduces the water content in the potatoes while adding oil to the product to produce the desired color and crispness. However, the resulting product contains considerable oil, and thus fat, which is generally unhealthy.
With increased public awareness of the benefits of low fat foods, efforts have been undertaken to develop alternate methods for producing the ever popular potato chip. Examples of such efforts are seen in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,277,510, 4,283,425, 4,749,579 and 4,906,483. While reducing the fat content of the resulting chip in comparison to the conventional deep frying process, the processes described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,277,510 and 4,749,579 continue to employ the step of frying the slices of potato in an oil and thus continue to add fat to the chip. The process described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,906,483 like the present invention, employs microwave heating in lieu of deep frying, but additionally teaches the removal of the starch from the potato chip and thus does not provide the whole food content of the potato. The process described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,283,425 also employs microwave cooking in lieu of frying to avoid the addition of fat to the chip but teaches the necessity of coating the chip prior to the microwave heating thereof with a globular protein such as soy isolate or egg albumen. As certain individuals are allergic to soy and dairy products and others prefer natural foods with no additives, such a process would be somewhat limited in its appeal. In contrast to the above processes, the process of the present invention not only provides potato chips having substantially the same flavor, color, crispness and a slightly greasy appearance similar to conventional deep-fried potato chips, without the need for deep-frying, but does so without the addition or deletion of any food content to the natural potato. The result is a completely natural potato chip which is very low in fat.

Process for preparing low fat potato chips


A universal mounting apparatus to hold personal devices such as cellular telephones, walkie talkies, etc., by attaching onto a vehicle grill vent in the vehicle dashboard. This apparatus is not configured to any particular year or model of automobile or other vehicle, but is adaptable in several different ways so as to provide different attachment configurations. It is attachable without tools to most automobiles by use of two cable tie-like straps. One end of each strap hooks around a rib in the vent grill and the other end extends through a member which is held against a bracket, the feet of which bear against the dashboard immediately surrounding the vent grill. This allows the apparatus to conform to different sizes and shapes of vent grills while maintaining a firm connection.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to vehicular accessories and more specifically to an apparatus for holding small items such as a cellular telephone on the dashboard of an automobile or other vehicle.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A number of commercially available products mount to the dashboard of an automobile to hold small objects, such as a cellular telephone. Typically these products include a bracket having feet which fit against the dashboard of the automobile and are held to the dashboard. Attached to the bracket is for instance a ball of a ball and socket joint. The socket of the ball and socket joint is attached thereto. A holster, or other type of container, is attached to the socket for holding for instance the cellular telephone. One such product is a relatively simple bracket whose feet fit into the seams in the dashboard. This has the advantage of requiring no fasteners, but the disadvantage that since it fits in the dashboard seams, a different bracket is required for each model of car, there being no standard distance between dashboard seams. Other types of fasteners actually fasten into the dashboard for instance by screws, etc.
A number of such devices attach to the ventilation ("vent") grills typically mounted in the dashboard. These grills provide a number of vent ribs to which devices can be relatively easily clamped or mounted. Hence this is a ready made mounting area. In one such device, hooks are provided which hook around the vent ribs and a corresponding screw mechanism draws the hooks against the vent ribs. This has several disadvantages. For one thing, there is no assurance that the screw end will actually clear the ribs; also the device may not fit all vehicles. Another type of device includes metal clips which clamp onto the vent ribs and stabilizer legs which bear on the dashboard surrounding the ventilation grill. This device, however, is not rigidly mounted. It has the advantage of being extremely adjustable, but may come loose under severe vibration. Another device is a vent hanging bracket which includes hooks which catch on the vent ribs and a metal clip which presses against the vent, creating a snug fit. Corresponding posts mount on the dashboard. This is self adjusting and compliant, but provides no width adjustment.
Therefore, while this is a well-known problem, currently available solutions all have significant defects.

Automobile universal dashboard mounting apparatus


An optical compensatory sheet comprises a transparent support and an optically anisotropic layer. The optically anisotropic layer is formed from liquid crystal molecules. Three principal refractive indices of the optically anisotropic layer are different from each other.

A liquid crystal display generally comprises a liquid crystal cell, a polarizing element and an optical compensatory sheet (phase retarder). In a display of transmission type, two polarizing elements are provided on both sides of the liquid crystal cell, and one or two optical compensatory sheets are placed between the liquid crystal cell and the polarizing element. A display of reflection type comprises a reflection plate, a liquid crystal cell, an optical compensatory sheet and a polarizing element in this order.
The liquid crystal cell comprises a pair of substrates, rod-like liquid crystal molecules and an electrode layer. The rod-like liquid crystal molecules are provided between the substrates. The electrode layer has a function of applying a voltage to the rod-like liquid crystal molecule. The liquid crystal cells can be classified into various display modes according to alignment of the rod-like liquid crystal molecules in the cell. Examples of the display modes for transmission type include TN (twisted nematic) mode, IPS (in-plane switching) mode, FLC (ferroelectric liquid crystal) mode, OCB (optically compensatory bend) mode, STN (super twisted nematic) mode and VA (vertically aligned) mode. Examples of the modes for reflection type include TN mode and HAN (hybrid aligned nematic) mode.
The optical compensatory sheet is widely used in various liquid crystal displays because it prevents the displayed image from undesirable coloring and enlarges a viewing angle of a liquid crystal cell. A stretched polymer film has been used as the optical compensatory sheet.
Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. 2(1990)-264905 discloses a process for preparing an optical compensatory sheet. In the process, a polymer that forms, by stretching, a refractive anisotropic body showing positive birefringence is biaxially stretched. The thus-prepared optically biaxial polymer film is particularly effective in optically compensating a liquid crystal cell containing rod-like liquid crystal molecules oriented in homeotropic alignment (e.g., a cell of VA mode).
An optical compensatory sheet can be formed from liquid crystal molecules in place of using the stretched polymer film. An optically anisotropic layer containing the liquid crystal molecules is provided on a transparent support. Since the liquid crystal molecules have various alignment forms, an optical compensatory sheet obtained by using the liquid crystal molecule has a specific optical characteristic that cannot be obtained by the conventional stretched polymer film.
Rod-like or discotic liquid crystal molecules are used in the optical compensatory sheet. A rod-like liquid crystal molecule is positively optically uniaxial. In detail, two principal refractive indices (indices along two directions perpendicular to the long axis of the rod-like molecule) are essentially identical, and the other principal refractive index (along the direction parallel to the long axis of the molecule) is larger than the two indices. In contrast, a discotic liquid crystal molecule is negatively optically uniaxial. In detail, two principal refractive indices (indices along two directions in a discotic plane of the molecule) are essentially the same, and the other principal refractive index (along the direction parallel to normal of the discotic plane) is smaller than the two indices.

Optical compensatory sheet comprising transparent support and optically anisotropic layer


Provided is a transmitter that includes a channel selector for modifying an operating frequency of a radio-controlled toy. The transmitter has a channel selection switch that enables a user to pick a channel from a set of predefined channels. The selected channel is then transferred to the toy. For example, a microcontroller unit within the transmitter may be used to detect the selected channel. The toy is placed in contact with the transmitter and the transmitter's microcontroller unit communicates the channel to a microcontroller unit inside the toy. The toy's microcontroller stores the channel in a memory in the toy. The toy then tunes to the stored frequency to receive control signals from the transmitter.

This disclosure relates generally to radio-controlled mobile toys and, more specifically, to selecting an operating frequency in such toys.
A radio-controlled toy, such as a radio-controlled car, is generally operated by a transmitter that transmits radio signals to the radio-controlled car using a predefined frequency (e.g., a channel). Because the radio-controlled car needs to be able to receive the radio signals transmitted by the transmitter, both the transmitter and the radio-controlled car should be set to a common frequency (e.g., should use the same channel).
Current methods for setting the frequency of the transmitter and the radio-controlled car include the use of crystals or radio frequency (RF) modules, which typically have a predetermined frequency. Accordingly, in order to operate the radio-controlled car via another frequency, the crystals or RF modules in both the transmitter and radio-controlled car must be replaced with new ones of the desired frequency, which can be both time-consuming and expensive.
Therefore, what is needed is a transmitter having a channel selector for selecting an operating frequency of the transmitter and an associated radio-controlled toy.

Channel selector for selecting an operating frequency


A method of obtaining a series of images of a three-dimensional object. The method includes the steps of transmitting pulsed terahertz (THz) radiation through the entire object from a plurality of angles, optically detecting changes in the transmitted THz radiation using pulsed laser radiation, and constructing a plurality of imaged slices of the three-dimensional object using the detected changes in the transmitted THz radiation. The THz radiation is transmitted through the object as a two-dimensional array of parallel rays. The optical detection is an array of detectors such as a CCD sensor.

The term terahertz, originally used by sub-millimeter spectroscopists to describe spectral lines with frequencies in the trillions of hertz, today is applied to broadband pulsed electromagnetic (EM) radiation between the infrared and microwave bands of the EM spectrum, ranging from 0.1 to 10 THz. The photon energies of THz radiation range from 0.4 to 80 mev, which corresponds to the range of fundamental energies associated with changes between molecular energy levels.
Over the past 20 years the technologies in the THz field have developed significantly, both in the generation of THz radiation as well as in its detection. Recent advances in high-speed optoelectronic and femtosecond laser technology facilitate generation and detection of short bursts of terahertz radiation, which has been proven to be extremely useful for spectroscopic measurements in the sub-millimeter wave range. Terahertz imaging combines these coherent spectroscopic measurements with real-time imaging and advanced signal processing and recognition, so that each pixel element of the image contains spectroscopic information about the object. Terahertz radiation is described in greater detail in an article by M. Nuss entitled "Chemistry is Right for T-Ray Imaging," Circuits & Devices, IEEE (March, 1996).
Typical apparatus and associated imaging methods for free-space electro-optic characterization of propagating terahertz beams are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,952,818 issued on Sep. 14, 1999 to Zhang et al. and assigned to the assignee of the present invention, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The sensing technique is based on a non-linear coupling between a low-frequency electric field (terahertz pulse) and a laser beam (optical pulse) in an electro-optic crystal, such as a zinc telluride (ZnTe) crystal. Modulating the crystal's birefringence by applying the polarized electric field to the crystal modulates the polarization states of an optical probe beam passing through the crystal. This ellipticity modulation of the optical beam is then polarization-analyzed to provide information on both the amplitude and phase of the applied electric field.
A further improvement in terahertz imaging is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,414,473 issued on Jul. 2, 2002 to Zhang et al and also assigned to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The described imaging system in this reference employs a chirped optical beam and dynamic subtraction to rapidly reconstruct an image thereby providing a system that is suitable for real-time imaging applications. According to this patent, the imaging system generates a free-space electromagnetic radiation pulse that can be positioned to pass through the object to be imaged, and one of an electro-optic crystal or a magneto-optic crystal positioned so that the electromagnetic radiation pulse passes through the crystal after passing through the object.
The system further generates a chirped optical probe signal to impinge the crystal simultaneously with the electromagnetic radiation pulse passing through the crystal so that a temporal waveform of the radiation is encoded onto a wavelength spectrum of the chirped optical probe signal. The chirped optical probe signal modulated by the free-space radiation is then passed to a decoder for decoding a characteristic of the free-space electromagnetic radiation using the chirped optical probe signal with the temporal waveform of the radiation encoded on the signal. The system further determines a characteristic of the object using the characterization of the free-space electromagnetic radiation pulse after passing through the object.
The use of a chirped optical probe increases the speed of data acquisition and greatly enhances the utility of terahertz computed tomography (THz-CT) technology. Image acquisition time remains comparatively long, however, due to the requirement that a target be scanned point-by-point to obtain the information necessary to reconstruct a target image.
It would be highly desirable, therefore, to develop a system that permits irradiating the full sample cross section at a given incidence angle with THz radiation and detecting the emerging THz radiation for the full target cross section rather than scanning the target point-by-point. Efforts to do so by expanding the THz beam have unfortunately been hampered by a number of problems, including poor signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) and quality of image reconstruction. A need remains to provide such as system.


Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for creating presentations using digital media content. In one aspect, input is received to position a first graphical element, such as a digital image, over a second graphical element to create a digital presentation. By analyzing a first feature associated with the first graphical element, it is determined that the first feature is incompatible with a second feature associated with the second graphical element. The second feature is dynamically and automatically modified to be compatible with the first feature, and the first graphical element is displayed over the second graphical element that is associated with the modified second feature, in response to the input.

Digital media items include digital representations of content, such as, images, music, video, documents, and the like. Such media can be stored in electronic format, for example, JPEG, AVI, PDF, and transferred electronically, for example, from one data storage device to another, through electronic mail or other electronic communication avenues. The media can be created in any of several ways. For example, digital still and video images can be captured using digital recorders and cameras, digital documents can be created by any of several techniques including using suitable computer software applications, scanning hard-copies of documents, and the like, and digital music or other audio tracks can be created using digital audio recorders. Managing a digital media item generally involves performing one or more operations on the media items including creating, storing, transferring, editing, viewing, presenting, or the like.
In some scenarios, presenting a digital media item includes creating a composite presentation using other media items. For example, multiple digital images can be collectively displayed on a slide, which can be included in a slide show of digital images.

Creating presentations using digital media content


The invention provides a temperature-compensated crystal oscillator employing an AT-cut crystal resonator in a crystal oscillation circuit, having a substantially constant oscillation frequency at approximately room temperature, wherein an output of a temperature sensor, having a substantially rectilinear temperature characteristic, is converted into square-law cure signals by a square-law converter circuit on the lower temperature side and a square-law converter circuit on the higher temperature side, respectively, which are then combined together by a signal synthesis circuit, producing a rectilinear correction signal. Frequency adjustment circuits are controlled by the signal, and temperature compensation is achieved by executing rectilinear correction of the oscillation frequency of the crystal oscillation circuit. In the case where the oscillation frequency of the AT-cut crystal resonator has a temperature characteristic having any gradient, a gradient is added to the rectilinear correction signal.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a temperature-compensated crystal oscillator mounted in communications equipment such as a cellular phone, and the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
A temperature-compensated crystal oscillator mounted in communications equipment such as a cellular phone and the like has an AT-cut crystal resonator (crystal unit) in a frequency band of 10 MHz as the oscillation source thereof, and the AT-cut crystal resonator is provided with some type of frequency adjustment circuit, making up a temperature compensation circuit. The temperature characteristic of the AT-cut crystal resonator, as expressed by a cubic curve, is canceled out by the temperature compensation circuit, thus stabilizing oscillation frequencies.
Such a temperature-compensated crystal oscillator is broadly broken down into two types depending on the configuration of the temperature compensation circuit: an analog temperature-compensated crystal oscillator, and a digital temperature-compensated crystal oscillator.
The digital temperature-compensated crystal oscillator is made up of a one-chip semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) with a nonvolatile memory mounted thereon, featuring the capability of achieving temperature compensation in a wide temperature range, and the generation of frequencies with high precision.
However, the same has failed to come into widespread use owing to its drawback of high phase noise.
On the other hand, the analog temperature-compensated crystal oscillator is made up of an AT-cut crystal resonator having the characteristic of a substantially constant oscillation frequency in the temperature range of from 15 to 45.degree. C., and a series-parallel circuit formed by discrete components such as a capacitor and thermistor.
With the analog temperature-compensated crystal oscillator, temperature compensation is effected mainly in a lower temperature range not higher than 15.degree. C., and in a higher temperature range not lower than 45.degree. C., respectively, through combination of the temperature characteristics of components thereof, and most of the products in widespread use today are of this type.
Temperature compensation by use of an analog temperature-compensated crystal oscillator made up of a one-chip semiconductor IC (referred to hereinafter as one-chip analog temperature-compensated crystal oscillator) instead of through the combination of the temperature characteristics of individual components has very recently been reported in, for example, literature by Kuichi Kubo, et al., 1996 IEEE INTERNATIONAL FREQUENCY CONTROL SYMPOSIUM, p. 728-734.
According to a temperature compensation method using the one-chip analog temperature-compensated crystal oscillator, after conducting a detailed study on the temperature characteristic of an AT-cut crystal resonator using a thermostatic bath (thermostat), a constant of a cubic curve generation circuit for canceling out the characteristic is written to a nonvolatile memory.
All temperature-compensated crystal oscillators have recently been forced to face up to the challenge of reduction in size and cost. In addition to that, in the light of an increasing tendency for the adoption of a system called CDMA aiming at international sharing of a common communications system, demand for expansion in the range of temperature compensation has been on the increase.
The range of temperature compensation up to now has been from minus 30.degree. C. to plus 75.degree. C. even in the case of a specification requiring the widest range. However, the CDMA requires that the range be expanded from minus 30.degree. C. to plus 85.degree. C.
A problem with the analog temperature-compensated crystal oscillator in achieving temperature compensation by taking advantage of a combination of the temperature characteristics of the components thereof is unavailability of suitable components meeting demand for low cost yet capable of effecting temperature compensation on the higher temperature side, not lower than 75.degree. C. This makes it difficult to expand the range for temperature compensation with the use of the analog temperature-compensated crystal oscillator.
The digital temperature-compensated crystal oscillator has no problem in respect of the range of temperature compensation.
However, it has a problem in that it is difficult to lower the phase noise level as low as that for the analog temperature-compensated crystal oscillator.
The one-chip analog temperature-compensated crystal oscillator has, in theory, a high potential of meeting all such requirements. However, with the conventional one-chip analog temperature-compensated crystal oscillator, it is not easy to reduce the cost of writing data for temperature compensation, leading to a problem of difficulty in achieving reduction in the total cost thereof.
In all, with the configuration of the conventional temperature-compensated crystal oscillators, it is extremely difficult to satisfy all the requirements, and the present state is far from the one desired by telephone manufacturers.

Temperature-compensated crystal oscillator using square-law converter circuits for lower and higher temperature sides


A device for holding a target adjacent first and second intersecting surfaces of a structure to assist in measuring a distance from an instrument to the target. The device has first and second levers that are joined by a pin that has a section that extends above the levers to receive the target. A force is applied to the first and second levers to bring non-skid pads thereon into engagement with the intersecting surfaces. The target is thereafter rotated into parallel alignment with the second surface and the instrument is aligned with the first surface. A signal transmitted from the instrument is reflected from the target to provide a direct measurement of the distance from the instrument to the target.

In surveying a piece of property it is common for a single operator to use a laser measuring instrument that is positioned at a first location to obtain a distance to a target on a prism pole at a second position. The laser measuring instrument emits a fan-shaped beam to initially locate the target and through a radio system uses a signal that is reflected from a target to calculate the distance and often times an elevation difference with respect to the instrument and the target. This system is completely adequate in open fields where a prism pole may be stuck in the ground however when such a system is used to measure the dimensions of a house or building it may not always be possible to insert the pole into the ground at a location adjacent a side wall due to a sidewalk or the foundation of the building. It has been suggested that the target be made into an A shaped member that is self standing. Unfortunately the target face may not always be parallel with the surface of the building for which a measurement is desired and as a result an accurate measurement of distance may not be obtained. In order to obtain an accurate measurement it has been suggested to tape a first target and a second target onto a building surface and thereby obtain first and second distance measurements from the instrument and the angle between the first and second targets with a computer in the instrument using this data to accurately define the distance between the first and second targets. This system, while offering a way of accurately measuring distance, would require an operator to continually tape and reset the targets and, in addition, the computer in the instrument must have a capability of measuring an angle between the targets in calculating the distance.


A semiconductor nonvolatile memory device including transistors whose threshold voltages can be electrically rewritten (erased, written). A read-selected word line voltage Vrw, lower than the supply voltage Vcc applied from the outside, is applied, and the threshold voltage difference between the higher threshold voltage VthH and the lower threshold voltage VthL in the two states of nonvolatile memory cells is reduced to bring the higher threshold voltage VthH close to the lower threshold voltage VthL. Moreover, a threshold voltage Vthi in the thermally equilibrium state of the memory cell, corresponding to the two threshold voltages of the two states, is set between the higher threshold voltage VthH and the lower threshold voltage VthL.

The present invention relates to a memory cell for maintaining a threshold voltage as data or a semiconductor nonvolatile memory device of which the data can be rewritten electrically and, more particularly, to a technique which is effective when applied to both a semiconductor nonvolatile memory device suited for frequently rewriting the data electrically and a computer system using the memory device.
As to the technique we have examined, for example, there is the so-called "flash memory (EEPROM)" belonging to the semiconductor nonvolatile memory device having the one-transistor/cell construction of which the data can be erased electrically in a batch. Attention has been focused on the flash memory in recent years because the area occupied by one bit is so small that it can be highly integrated, and the structure and driving method have been widely researched and developed.
For example, there have been proposed the DINOR method disclosed on pp. 97 to 98, "Symposium on VLSI Circuits Digest of Technical Papers", 1993, the NOR method disclosed on pp. 99 to 100 of the same, 1993, the AND method disclosed on pp. 61 to 62 of the same, 1994, and the HICR method disclosed on pp. 19 to 22, "International Electron Devices Meeting Tech. Dig.", 1993.
In each of the above-specified methods, the voltage applied to a selected word line in the reading time is the supply voltage Vcc (e.g., 3.3 V) applied to the memory device from the outside. More specifically, in the current characteristics (threshold characteristics) with respect to the word line voltage in the read operation, both states (e.g., the two threshold voltage states) of the memory cell are over 0 V, and the read voltage of the selected word line at this time is the supply voltage Vcc between the two states. The unselected word line voltage is below the voltage,i.e., the ground voltage Vss, corresponding to the lower threshold voltage.
Of the two states of the memory cell, the potential of the selected word line at the time of verifying the higher threshold value is higher than the maximum of the supply voltage Vcc and contains a retention margin, additionally. The verify potential on the lower threshold value side has a threshold over 0 V, at which the current of the memory cell does not flow at the unselected word line potential of 0 V. In the aforementioned AND method, for example, the verify word line potential is set to 1.5 V.
The read word line potential in the prior art described above is the supply voltage Vcc, and the threshold potential difference of the two states of the memory cell is over 3 V. The applied voltage necessary to rewrite (erase, program) the threshold of the memory cell in two states is determined by the coupling ratio, the threshold voltage Vthi and the higher threshold voltages VthH in the thermal equilibrium state, and the Vthi and the lower threshold voltage VthL. In order to change the threshold value of the memory cell to the higher state VthH in the aforementioned AND method, a voltage of 16 V is applied to the word line. For the lower state VthL, the voltage of the word line is a negative voltage of -9 V and the drain voltage is 4 V. Therefore a high potential is necessary.

Semiconductor nonvolatile memory device and computer system using the same


A uniformly expandable mold is formed with a continuous surface defining a three-dimensional pattern for replicating an article. The relative pressure between the inside of the mold and the outside controls the area of the surface to change the size of the three-dimensional pattern without distorting the relative dimensional relationship of the component segments forming the pattern whereby material may be deposited on the mold surface with the mold expanded to a desired size. The pressure differential is increased to increase the size of the mold and stretch the layer already deposited thereon. A second, dissimilar layer is bonded to the first layer while it is streched When the article is removed from the mold, a state of relative expansive/compressive tension is created at the bond interface between the first and second layers which forces the material of one layer to enter voids in the other layer to seal defects.

In the past, thin layers, sheets, and films of natural latex rubber have been widely used for a variety of different products, ranging from decorative articles, protective devices, and many different kinds of medical devices. Such thin rubber articles are often made in seamless form by dipping or otherwise coating a shaped, rigid mold of fixed dimensions, into a liquid latex solution and curing the resulting shaped rubber article.
A large proportion of such manufactured articles are often defective and unusable for their intended purposes, due to the formation of small openings, e.g., pin holes, in the rubber film, as well as thin spots, or weakened areas in the thin rubber layer. Such small openings become enlarged during elastic stretching of the article, and sometimes burst; as does the thin film in the thin spots or weakened areas as the rubber article is stretched.
As a result, such manufacturing imperfections result in undesirably large rejection rates of the resulting products, that in some instances exceed more than 10% of the yield. Particularly in the medical product uses, such imperfections render the articles unsuitable, permitting contaminated body fluids to leak through the small openings in the rubber layer and resulting in the possibility of transmitting infection to persons in contact with the rubber articles.
The mold and techniques disclosed herein provide a method whereby a rubber article is rendered "self-healing" by stretch-coating the article on an "expandable mold". However, the prior art does not teach making such a mold, so that the article can be stretched uniformly (proportionally) in three dimensions, as that would be the case for a shaped (hollow) article. Neither does the prior art disclose a method or apparatus for minimizing the occurrence of the above-mentioned defects in the pre-cure manufacturing stage.
In addition, the mold and techniques disclosed herein provide a method whereby an elastic prophylactic device or the mold of the present invention may be coated with a continuous thin layer of a ductile metal while the device is stretched over a mold. The resulting device can be repeatedly expanded and contracted without fracture or breaking of the thin metal layer.
The physical realities which are encountered in developing a mold to be used to create the above described objects are unique to the process and this invention. For instance, when a shaped, hollow elastic article is sufficiently pressurized to be inflated, the article does not inflate uniformly and proportionally to its shape in its relaxed, uninflated state, but it balloons out, tending to assume a spherical shape. This is the case, for example, with a latex medical glove, or any rubber glove, regardless of its thickness. An additional appreciation of the problem is gained by the experiment wherein two identical rubber balloons, inflated to two different diameters are connected with a tube, whereupon air rushes from the balloon of the smaller diameter to the other of the larger diameter. The quantitative relationship among pressure (P), tension (T) (defined as the force over proportional elongation), and the radius (R) of an inflated elastic sphere is given by the formula: ##EQU1## For an elastic cylinder the formula is: ##EQU2##
These formulas are known as "Laplace's law". Consequently, the intuitive approach to making an expandable mold, of an arbitrary shape, out of an elastic envelope having different curvatures at different regions of its surface, and which can be uniformly expanded (inflated), is precluded by Laplace's law. Only when the elastic envelope has a spherical shape (i.e., a single radius of curvature) and a substantially uniform wall thickness, proportional expansion is possible.
A disadvantage of using customary rigid formers (molds) for making shaped elastic devices, such as latex medical gloves and prophylactics, by the conventional dipping technique, is that the rigid molds cannot be used to prevent or correct the occurrence of manufacturing defects, such as pinholes and thin spots. A rigid mold serves merely as a passive support on which the thin latex film forms, and therefore, it cannot modify the latex film, once formed, in any way.
Natural latex rubber is the most widely used material for many different kinds of protective and medical devices. Latex, however, contains certain undesirable, water soluble proteins which become entrapped in the elastomeric matrix of the finished (vulcanized) devices. Such proteins leach out of the devices in contact with human tissues during their intended use. As reported in the Food and Drug Administration Medical Alert letter of Mar. 29, 1991, such leachable proteins can cause adverse reactions and deaths. The current guidelines to manufacturers for deproteinization of finished latex devices call for their immersion in leaching tanks at elevated temperatures and post-cure processing wherein the devices are washed off-line with hot water. Also, for surface treatment of the cured latex devices with chlorine or other agents which may denature surface constituents such as water soluble proteins to render them harmless. These deproteinization treatments are performed while the latex devices are off their molds and in their relaxed (unstretched) state which cannot facilitate in any way a more efficient removal of solubles from the finished device.
Currently, "dipped" latex devices, such as medical gloves and condoms, are tested for the integrity of their continuous thin latex membrane to provide an opening-free continuous barrier to pathogens, by two methods:
(a) on-line, wherein the ionic current through the devices is monitored while the devices are still on their rigid, electrically conductive, molds; PA1 (b) off-line, wherein a small percentage of the finished devices is selected, by statistical sampling techniques, and the devices are filled with a specified amount of water and are checked for leaks. In their stretched state they may also be tested electrically. PA1 (a) varying the wall-thickness profile of the envelope; and/or, PA1 (b) selecting the limits of the linear elastic range of the envelope's material; and/or, PA1 (c) providing under the envelope an inflatable, non-extensible liner; and/or, PA1 (d) filling the mold cavity with on open-cell foam rubber body in adhesive contact with the inner surface of the envelope, in the expanded state of the mold. PA1 (a) rendering shaped rubber devices "self-healing"; PA1 (b) minimizing pinholes and thin spots in rubber latex dipped devices during the pre-cure stage; PA1 (c) removal of solubles from finished, latex devices; and PA1 (d) on-line electrical testing of finished, latex devices in their stretched state.
The prior art does not provide a method by which on-line testing of the finished devices is performed with simultaneous three-dimensional stretching of the devices. These are the conditions under which pinholes and other manufacturing defects are enlarged and become evident in seemingly intact devices. Such defects may not be detected in either the off-line or on-line tests such as electrical tests when the products are in their unstretched state.
An additional disadvantage of rigid molds conventionally used in the manufacture of dipped latex devices is that they are subject to damage with dents and scratches, producing defective devices.


The non-volatile semiconductor memory of the present invention comprises a memory cell transistor to which three or more threshold values are set by controlling the floating gate-source voltage, wherein the voltage of the floating gate is maintained constant while the voltage applied to the source is varied.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a semiconductor memory device and data writing method thereof, and more particularly relates to a non-volatile semiconductor memory device capable of establishing multi-level information and a voltage control method for writing such information.
2. Description of the Related Art
A non-volatile semiconductor memory device has a plurality of memory cell. The memory cell has an electrode called as floating gate which is insulated electrically from a gate electrode called as control gate thereof and a silicon substrate.
Data are written in a memory cell transistor by two ways. One is a writing method (referred to as FN wiring method hereinafter) in which the control gate is maintained at a high voltage, and electrons are pulled out from the floating gate by way of tunnel current to lower the threshold voltage (referred to as cell Vt hereinafter) of the memory cell. The other one is a writing method (referred to as CHE writing method hereinafter) in which channel hot electrons are generated by a current flowing between the drain and the source by the condition that the control gate is maintained at a high voltage and the drain is maintained at a medium voltage are transferred to the floating gate to raise the cell Vt.
CHE writing method is advantageous in comparison with FN writing method in that a short time is sufficient for writing. Therefore CHE writing method has attracted attentions recently.
Recently, the demand for large memory capacity of memory IC has grown more and more. To satisfy the demand, use of multi-level information of three or higher level to be stored in memory cells has been developed.
Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei 7-29382 proposes a means for writing such multi-level information of three or higher level in a memory cell by way of CHE writing method.
However, the writing method involves transitional cell Vt instead of final or saturate cell Vt as multi-level information to be stored in the memory cell. Therefore, dispersion in writing characteristics of the memory cell should be concerned. The width of cell Vt distribution is wide and writing operation margin is small.

Non-volatile semiconductor memory device having a memory cell capable of establishing multi-level information and data writing method thereof


Techniques for providing a dynamic alert indication to a user of a signal receiving device. One technique includes the steps of processing a signal transmitted from a signal transmitting device to determine at least one mode to be associated with an alert indication, wherein the processing step includes the step of accessing a look-up table containing information associated with a user of the signal receiving device to determine the at least one mode to be associated with the alert indication; and alerting the user of the signal receiving device via the alert indication that the signal has been received by the signal receiving device.

With the proliferation of communication devices (e.g., cellular phone, two-way pagers, personal digital assistants, and the like) and their increased use in society comes the need for communication systems and devices that can adapt the mode used to alert users to an incoming message to the content of that message as well as the context of the device and its user.
A system for selectively delivering electronic messages to a user using mobile and fixed devices is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,493,692, issued Feb. 20, 1996, and entitled "Selective Delivery of Electronic Messages in a Multiple Computer System Based on Context and Environment of a User" (hereinafter referred to as the '692 patent). More specifically, the '692 patent discloses a system that allows a sending party to give an electronic message a level of privacy and a set of context attributes. The level of privacy and the specified context attributes must be matched for the message to be delivered. The system uses this information to identify an appropriate device on which to deliver a message or to notify the user of the message. If none are available, the system holds the message until the constraints can be met. However, the system in the '692 patent does not use the user's dynamic context, the priority of the message, nor the user's static preferences to determine how best to alert the user of the message.
Today, communication devices allow users only a modest ability to control the behavior of their phones. For example, the Motorola Talkabout T900 2-way cellular phone offers two features which allow users to control the alert behavior of their device: "Private Time" and "Quiet Mode." When using private time, the user specifies a period of time each day during which the user will not be alerted to any messages, though the message will continue to arrive at the device. Quiet mode allows users to turn off all alerts, though again the device will continue to receive messages.
The Motorola V Series Model 66 cellular phone offers thirty-two (32) pre-set and thirty-two (32) customizable ring tones (i.e., alerts). The Motorola V Series Model 160c cellular phone allows incoming calls and messages to be distinguished by thirty-two (32) unique ringer tones. This customization is based solely upon caller-id-type functionality.
The Nokia 3285 Digital cellular phone allows similar functionality. In addition, however, the Nokia 3390 allows users to create and download profile settings that customize the phone's look and sound. The Nokia profiles allow a phone user to customize the phone's various alerts (incoming call, incoming message, error, low battery, etc.) manually. Users might change their current profile based upon their surroundings as well as their mood, interest in the functions of the phone, and the time-of-day. In addition, the user may create one or more custom ring tones using a ring tone composer. Nokia defines the term "ring tone" as a special user-selected tone to alert the user to an incoming call.
Although the profiles supported by these phones do allow the user to adjust and customize the alert for different conditions and environments, the user must switch from one profile to another manually. It is not uncommon for the user to forget, or not be otherwise able, to manually switch from one profile to another. For example, the user may be so deeply involved in a particular meeting or movie that the user forgets to switch to a quiet mode until he or she is reminded by an audible alert.
The Ericsson T29s cellular phone also has customizable profiles, but only selects certain profiles automatically when a particular accessory is used (such as the car hands-free unit).
There remains a need, therefore, for communication and computational devices which have the capability of automatically alerting a user in a manner most appropriate to that user's surroundings and environment, without manual intervention when the surroundings or environment change.

Method and apparatus for providing dynamic user alert

International Business Machines Corporation


A method of issuing and managing investment instruments called “Pension Shares” which preferably take the form of securities that represents a claim against and is secured by an investment fund. A Pension Share entitles its holder to receive, at a specified maturity date, either a lump sum payment amount or, at the option of said holder, to receive a sequence of annuity payments. The Pension Share issuer creates and manages the investment fund such that its net asset value at the maturity date will be adequate to make the lump sum payment or provide the holder with the annuity. A preferred form of Pension Share provides an annuity option of one dollar per for the life of the holder, or his or her survivor, both of whom are at a predetermined age at the maturity date. A Pension Share may be redeemed on demand in advance of the maturity date so that it may be exchanged for a Pension Share having a different maturity date if the holder's plans change.

Until the last century, Americans generally worked as long as they were able and relied on their families for support in old age. But over the course of the last 100 years, we have gradually come to expect an independent retirement at or around 65 years old. These new expectations are the product of government programs (primarily Social Security) and the defined benefit plans, or pensions that have been widely provided by employers. Pension plans typically reward years of service with secure retirement benefits and, from the employee's perspective, retirement is funded almost invisibly. Employers oversaw the investment of pension funds and assumed the market risk.
Pension plans have several drawbacks for employees and employers alike: the benefits are not portable, and may be lost when an employee leaves the company; employees have no control over or access to their benefits before retirement; the pension fund could fail if the employer becomes insolvent; and the employer's profits include not only the results from business operations but must reflect the employer's pension fund's investment losses as well. In recent decades, "defined contribution" plans have largely displaced pensions. These plans are sponsored by employers but are funded voluntarily by employees. Their strengths include: ease of participation; tax-deferred contributions by employees; full employee ownership (vesting) of their own contributions; portability when changing employment, either to other plans or to Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs); flexibility in the amount and timing of contributions; borrowing privileges; and choice of investments.
Through defined contribution plans, employees gained ownership and control of their retirement funding, but assumed complete responsibility for saving enough and obtained no shelter from investment risk. Employees like the control, and employers like their reduced responsibility and risk.
A growing number of policy makers see the shift to defined contribution plans as harmful to employees because most save too little, can't adequately forecast how much money they will need, and often manage the investments they do make poorly. Defined contribution plan participants want to know what to expect for income in retirement, but with self-direction they don't know how much to save or how to invest. Retirement calculators have proven ineffective, and investment advisors have not been effective or available to give confidence.
While guaranteed investment products, such as deferred annuities and guaranteed investment contracts, are available today, they are intimidating and complicated from the buyer's standpoint.
Deferred annuity contracts are typically sold in exchange for a lump sum premium, possibly with a contract to make additional payments until retirement, and grow at variable rate (sometimes with partial guarantee of rate) until retirement. Annuity contracts typically make payments for single life, joint life, or for period certain, with other options for minimum payout and recovery of some amount of cash value. While these features are desirable, conventional deferred annuity contracts exhibit most if not all of the following significant disadvantages: the rates of return is either not guaranteed, or guaranteed only for a short term; annuity contracts are typically complex and hard to understand, making it difficult for most investors to make the sound choices needed to properly fund their retirement; annuity contracts are not liquid and may only be exchanged for a sum which is aptly named the contract's "surrender value;" annuity contracts cannot be altered or exchanged to provide a different maturity in case the investor's seeks earlier or later retirement or otherwise changes plans; and annuity contracts are subject to insurance regulations that vary from state to state, adding overhead and complexity.
Note that savings objectives other than retirement funding are well matched to the deferred annuity structure, including education funding. We will also show that estimating the theoretical price and returns of financial instruments in which the purchaser can have a high confidence of a particular or a minimum result is useful in financial planning and in understanding the nature and impact of variable results from riskier investment strategies.
In a defined benefit plan (pension plan), there is a party that implicitly guarantees the performance of the investments set aside to fund the liability represented by the future benefits, and that guarantees the payouts that derive from those investments. The employer or sponsor of the plan expects the value of labor to meet or exceed the total costs of compensation, including the pension plan. In a defined contribution plan, there is no party that will make such guarantees, unless it has a fair chance of making a profit in return for the guarantee. To provide a pension replacement vehicle in a defined contribution plan, you must have a guarantee of a minimum rate of return and a minimum conversion of accumulations to payouts (or in the absence of absolute guarantees, a rate of return and conversion in which you can have high practical or statistically measurable confidence). If you know the minimum return and the minimum conversion, then you can express a target or minimum income that will be provided for any given amount today.
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to combine the best features of defined benefit and defined contribution plans in order to provide secure returns, portability, and access in an investment product that may be readily understood by investors and that provides a defined benefit that is structured to fit easily into defined contribution plans and the channels that market and service those plans.

Methods for issuing, distributing, managing and redeeming investment instruments providing securitized annuity options


Applicable to humans, animals and fish, a method for injecting thoroughly diffused ambient air or disinfectant into water prior to its delivery into a therapy tank plus an underwater PZT probe transmission of separate stable and transient cavitation signals from which a microcomputer determines, 1) the average number of transducer generated sinoidal equal amplitude alternating compression and rarefaction ultrasonic acoustic pressure waves cycles necessary to create inertial and/or transient cavitation and the required number of rectified sinoidal equal amplitude ultrasonic compression acoustic pressure waves necessary to suppress the inertial/transient cavitation and thereby maintain stable cavitation for cleaning and open-wound therapy treatment for 15-minutes, (or greater) time periods and 2) the necessary dilution of water and disinfectant and its activation by dual-mode transient cavitation to kill the pathogens shed by the “patient” following “patient” cleaning or wound-therapy treatment.

In the early 1990's, the present inventor introduced a low-frequency, low-intensity ultrasound device ("Hydrosound") to effect microscopic cleaning of nursing-home patients during their weekly bathing-cycle. The preferred ultrasonic center frequency was 30 kHz and the maximum acoustic intensity was limited to 3 W/cm2, spatial peak temporal peak (SPTP). The 30 kHz center frequency was swept between 29 and 31 kHz at a rate of 120 Hz to avoid acoustic standing waves within the bathtub.
Ultrasonic human patient cleaning devices are known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,942,868, U.S. Pat. No. 5,048,520, U.S. Pat. No. 5,178,134, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,305,737. Subaqueous human application of the high frequency therapy devices is described in "CLINICS IN DIAGNOSTIC ULTRASOUND 16, edited by Wesley L. Nyborg, Marvin C. Ziskin—Section 11, Therapeutic Applications of Ultrasound, Mary Dyson.
Over the past ten years, thousands upon thousands of subaqueous exposures have demonstrated the overall safety of these ultrasonic exposure parameters for full-immersion cleaning of human patients having intact tissue with no open wounds. The only use-prohibition of the low-frequency, low-intensity ultrasound device was for wound therapy because at a frequency of 30 kHz and average acoustic intensity of more than 0.5 W/cm2 (SPTP), the device produced both inertial and transient cavitation events. Inertial or transient cavitation that occurred within 15 cm of the cleaning device's transducer demonstrated that this version of an ultrasonic cleaning modality could damage open wounds. Nevertheless, accepting this limitation, the FDA listed the low-frequency, low-intensity ultrasound device as a medical device equivalent to hydromassage or whirlpool devices but suitable for only cleaning human patients who have intact tissue without the presence of open wounds.
High-intensity ultrasound (not appropriate to this invention) can expand a bubble so rapidly during a negative-pressure cycle that the bubble collapses before it has a chance to shrink during the positive-pressure cycle. At high intensity, therefore, bubbles can grow rapidly in the course of one cycle of sound to the state of inertial cavitation collapse.
In what is known as Rectified Mass Diffusion, a bubble's size oscillates in phase with the acoustic pressure expansion (rarefaction) and compression cycles. The surface area of a bubble produced by ultrasound pressure is slightly greater during rarefaction than in compression cycles. Since the amount of gas that diffuses in or out of the bubble depends on the bubble's surface area and skin thickness, diffusion into the bubble during rarefaction cycles will be slightly greater than diffusion out during compression cycles. For each cycle of sound, the bubble expands a little more than it shrinks. Over many cycles the size of bubbles will grow slowly. With Rectified Mass Diffusion, the growing bubble can eventually reach applied frequency resonant size where it will most efficiently absorb energy from the ultrasound.
At 30 kHz, for example, the resonant bubble diameter is 100 microns while the critical bubble size, where the bubble can no longer absorb acoustic energy, is roughly 120 microns in diameter. After reaching resonant size, critical bubble size can be attained in a few more cycles of sound. When this occurs, liquid inertial force will rush into the bubble and implode it. Thus, within a few microns radius, the resulting implosion generates temperatures of thousands of degrees Kelvin and increases in pressure of thousands of atmospheres. This implosion phenomena is known as inertial or transient cavitation.
Also, when a bubble reaches a critical radius Rc at the same time that Blake's critical threshold pressure is reached, unstable bubble growth and therefore transient cavitation occur, with bubble collapse results similar to inertial cavitation. However, this particular phenomenon is subject to there being sufficient time in each pressure cycle to permit bubble growth. This is determined by the relationship between the radian frequency w of the imposed oscillations and the natural frequency wN of the bubble at its current size. If the radian frequency w is much less than the natural frequency wN then the liquid inertia is relatively unimportant in the bubble dynamics and Blake's threshold pressure criteria will hold and transient cavitation will ensue. On the other hand, if the radian frequency w is much greater than the natural frequency wN, the issue will involve the dynamics of bubble growth since its inertia will determine the size of bubble perturbations.
Inertial or transient cavitation (bubble) phenomena are manifested through the dynamic interaction of many diverse physical parameters, including the relationship between the frequency w of the imposed oscillations and the natural frequency wN of the bubble, the relationship between the pressure oscillation amplitude and the mean pressure, and whether the bubble is predominantly vapor filled or gas filled. Stable oscillations are more likely with predominantly gas filled bubbles, while bubbles that contain mostly vapor will more readily exhibit transient cavitation. Other variables that have a bearing are bubble temperature, thermal damping, water purity, surface tension, viscosity, viscous damping and radiation damping.
The probability that bubbles will oscillate stably or deteriorate into inertial or transient cavitation can be forecast mathematically if appropriate values are assigned to the above variables. Such mathematical analyses and treatises have value only post-mortem or in situations where water quality and temperature can be formulated before ultrasonic irradiation of an aqueous solution.
Unfortunately, to effect cavitation control in most patient treatment environments, water quality and its temperature control have to be viewed as an amorphous mass whose critical second-order parameters are not known and cannot be formulated beforehand. Only through experimentation can the cavitation tendency of this amorphous mass be established and only by experiment can the required ratio be determined between positive and rarefaction pressure cycles needed to predictably extend the time before a cavitation bubble implodes. Fortunately, the resulting states of cavitation from such manipulations can be determined by detecting the different acoustic pressure emission from stable and inertial/transient cavitation.
On the assumption that a human patient cleaning device would only be used for patients having intact tissue without open-wounds, it was sufficient to lower its applied ultrasonic intensity until occasional tingly-sensation events from transient cavitation in the vicinity of the patient, could be tolerated by the epidermis protected corium.
As implied above, there is a need for an ultrasound treatment device for open-wound therapy, where the body's external protective covering has broken down. On the assumption that low-frequency, low-intensity ultrasound device would only be used for patients having intact tissue, without the presence of open-wounds, standard hospital whirlpool disinfection procedures used for bathtub-cleaning after patient bathing have been judged sufficient. However, where the low-frequency, low-intensity ultrasound device is to be used with patients or subjects having open wounds, it will be critical for it to incorporate an automatic therapy tank decontamination means for killing shed pathogens between patients or subjects experiencing sonic open-wound treatments.
It is well-understood by medical-researchers that the biological basis of ultrasonic non-thermal therapy for beneficial cellular, tissue changes and wound healing depends on the presence of stable cavitation and associated microstreaming without the presence of inertial or transient cavitation. They also agree that the gas bubbles involved in transient/inertial cavitation undergo irregular oscillations and then implode, producing increases in temperature of thousands of degrees Kelvin and increases in pressure of thousands of atmospheres, localized in regions of only a few microns radius. They also recognize that any live cells exposed to such conditions would clearly be destroyed.
Side by side experiments on humans have shown that at ultrasonically treated wound sites there is an increase in total area of the blood vessels in the sections examined for both low and high frequency irradiation. There were more endothelial cells present following kHz treatment than following mHz treatment. This was particularly clear 7-days following ultrasound treatment; similar but undocumented favorable results were obtained for animals.
Several animal trials have been published in which mice, rabbits and pigs were subjected to 30 kHz low intensity ultrasound to establish the degree to which their lung tissue was damaged at increasing score levels of acoustic pressure amplitude, (0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, where 0 score was no damage and 10 score was death). To establish the level of ultrasound pressure vs. lung damage, 30 kHz ultrasound was propagated through thoroughly filtered water so as to eliminate the possibility of cavitation occurring or attenuation of the applied ultrasonic pressure waves. At approximately 145 kPa for 10-minutes, (8-10 score), the lungs of all the mice involved (more than 270) experienced massive lung-hemorrhage, followed by death. Subsequently, another experiment repeated the same ultrasonic exposure but this time in the presence of ultrasonic vibrating bubbles. Two mice were exposed to lethal amounts of ultrasound, (145 kPa for 10-minutes); both mice had lung damage scores of 0. A third mouse was exposed at 200 kPa and a fourth at 240 kPa and those also had lung damage scores of 0.
Because of the ability of fish to detect very low levels acoustic pressure amplitude it is very important to appreciate that the 0 kPa score clinical condition for mice was a sham condition where no ultrasound exposure was applied. It follows that when the mice were exposed to lethal levels of acoustic pressure (in excess of 145 kPa) in the presence of stable vibrating bubbles, as established by follow-on post mortems, their clinical condition was the same as the mice who received no ultrasound exposure, i.e., "alive, no lesions in lungs; normal respiration; no blood in chest cavity. No lung tissue damage; lung septa and capillaries (blood vessels) are normal." The lung damage effect on humans, rabbits and pigs was far less than on mice; the lung is considered one of the most sensitive organs to the harmful effects of ultrasound exposure.
According to Hastings, (1990), a Sound Pressure Level (SPL) greater than 0.032 kPa is not harmful to fish. A Sound Pressure Level (SPL) greater than 1 kPa is harmful to many fish. According to Norris and Mohl, (1983), a Sound Pressure Level (SPL) greater than 266 kPa is fatal to most fish.
A problem area with recirculating tanks employed for aquaculture is reducing ammonia concentrations caused by the presence of fish faeces and un-eaten fish feed particulate matter. Currently, the problem is addressed by a combination of screen filtering for the removal of un-eaten fish feed particulates and faeces-ammonia by employing nitrifying bacteria to detoxify fish excretory matter by oxidizing faeces-ammonia and nitrites into non-toxic nitrates. These bacteria are located in either trickling filters, fluidized bed sand filters or thin film filters.
While effective in reducing the concentration of ammonia in recirculating aquaculture systems, this bio-technique has drawbacks when it becomes necessary to treat fish with chemicals or drugs. Cleaning and declogging static biofilters can also pose difficult problems. Some therapeutic chemicals and drugs used to treat fish are harmful to the nitrifying bacteria situated in these biofilters. These necessary maintenance actions can lead to an abrupt lowering of the population of these nitrifying bacteria resulting in the emergence of toxic NH3 (ammonia) concentrations and resulting fish-kills. Also it can take up to 3-months to populate these filters with nitrifying bacteria.

Method and device for subaqueous ultrasonic irradiation of living tissue