An implantable device for stabilizing at least a portion of a spinal column. The implantable device comprises an implantable artificial facet joint and one or more artificial ligaments connecting the implanted artificial facet joint to a third vertebra disposed adjacent to either the first or the second vertebra. The artificial facet joint, when implanted, spans a first vertebra and a second vertebra, adjacent to the first vertebra.

The vertebrae in a patient's spinal column are linked to one another by the disc and the facet joints, which control movement of the vertebrae relative to one another. Each vertebra has a pair of articulating surfaces located on the left side, and a pair of articulating surfaces located on the right side, and each pair includes a superior articular surface, which faces upward, and an inferior articular surface, which faces downward. Together the superior and inferior articular surfaces of adjacent vertebra form a facet joint. Each joint is surrounded by a capsule of connective tissue and produces a fluid to nourish and lubricate the joint. The joint surfaces are coated with cartilage allowing the joints to move or articulate relative to one another.
Diseased, degenerated, or otherwise impaired facet joints and/or discs can be surgically removed and prosthetic discs and/or facet joints implanted to restore natural function of a spine. Similar surgery may also be required after a laminectomy (removal of lamina), since a laminectomy predisposes the patient to instability and may lead to post-laminectomy kyphosis (abnormal forward curvature of the spine), pain, and neurological dysfunction.
However, implantation of an artificial facet joint frequently requires removal of a significant portion of the posterior ligamentous structures of the spine. This results in incomplete restoration of natural function of a spine as well as decreased stability and increased mobility (increased range of motion) of the patient's spinal column. Accordingly, there is a need for an artificial facet joint that would restore the natural function of a spine, including that of posterior ligaments.

Facet joint and spinal ligament replacement


1.5 Fumaric acid salts of N,N'-di-lower alkyl-substituted 9,9-alkylene-3,7-diazabicyclo[3.3.1 ]nonanes and a process for obtaining them in stoichiometrically pure and virtually non-hygroscopic form.

The present invention relates to novel crystalline fumaric acid salts of N,N'-disubstituted 9,9-alkylene-3,7-diazabicyclo[3.3.1]nonane compounds corresponding to the general formula I ##STR1## in which A denotes an alkylene chain of 4-5 carbon atoms and R.sup.1 and R.sup.2 independently of one another each denote a straight-chain or branched alkyl group of 3-4 carbon atoms or the cyclopropylmethyl group.
9,9-Alkylene-3,7-diazabicyclononane compounds of formula I and their pharmacological activities are known from published European Patent No. EP 103,833 and the corrosponding U.S. Pat. No. 4,550,112, and Finnish Patent No. FI 76,338. compounds of formula I are a sub-group of the 9,9N,N'-tetrasubstituted 3,7-diazabicyclo[3.3.1]-nonane compounds described in the aforementioned patent specifications and can be prepared by the methods described therein. The aforementioned patent specifications disclose that the compounds have useful cardio-active properties, particularly oxygen-saving effects and effects on the heart rate and heart rhythm, and are distinguished by a high physiological tolerance. Thus, the compounds show a satisfactory antiarrhythmic action even at low doses. Moreover, the undesired negative effect on the contractile power of the heart is extremely low; i.e. the compounds have a particularly favorable ratio of antiarrhythmic or the refractory period of the heart prolonging activities, to negative inotropic secondary activities.
Moreover, it is described in Burow et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,164,401, the compounds also have a pronounced diuretic effect with a favorable ratio between sodium and potassium excretion.
Salts of compounds of formula I described in Finnish Patent No. FI 76,338, include the dihydrogentartrate, and in copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/714,886, the dihydrogentartrate and the dihydrochloride of N,N'-dicyclopropylmethyl-9,9-tetramethylene-3,7-diazabicyclo[3.3.1 ]-nonane and the dihydrogentartrate and the dihydrogenfumarate of N-isobutyl-N'-isopropyl-9,9-pentamethylene-3,7-diazabicyclo[3.3.1]nonane.
The salts of the compounds of the formula I used in the past have the disadvantage that they are not obtained in crystalline form. Instead, they are obtained in amorphous form as, for example, the hydrogentartrates, and/or are strongly hygroscopic as, for example, the hydrochlorides. Because of varying solvent contents in salts of this type, it is not possible without special precautionary measures to assure a constant stoichiometric composition and a constant bioavailability.

Crystalline fumaric acid salts of 9,9-alkylene-3,7-diazabicyclononane compounds and pharmaceutical compositions containing them


A hollow backrest pad for a seat of motor vehicle comprises compartments, alternate channels each being in communication with adjacent compartments, an inlet port at one side of backrest pad in communication with one channel, a motor adjacent inlet port for pumping air into channel, a hollow cylindrical member below motor, a speaker within cylindrical member, a signal cord extended from cylindrical member to an external low-frequency which is in turn electrically coupled to a stereo system, an outlet port at other side of backrest pad in communication with another channel, and a relief valve in outlet port for reducing pressure of backrest pad. When stereo system is activated, signals are transmitted to speaker through low-frequency and signal cord for generating music. Simultaneously, cold air is introduced into backrest pad from an air conditioning of motor vehicle via inlet port by activated motor so as to generate a resonant effect by combining music with cold air.

The present invention relates to backrest pad of motor vehicle and more particularly to an improved backrest pad having cooling and sound producing arrangement.
A conventional car stereo system can play stereo music for rider and/or passenger(s) to enjoy while driving. Another conventional car stereo system further equips with various speakers within a car so as to bring a high quality entertainment to rider and/or passenger(s) while driving. However, such provision inevitably requires to relish the interior of car, i.e, redesigning. This is disadvantageous because the whole electric system of car has to configure again resulting in a mess of the electric system. This is not safe. Thus, improvement exists.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a hollow backrest pad for a seat of motor vehicle comprising a plurality of compartments, a plurality of alternate channels each being in communication with the adjacent compartments, an inlet port at one side of the backrest pad in communication with one of the channels, a motor in the channel adjacent the inlet port capable of pumping air into the channel, a hollow cylindrical member in the channel below the motor by a predetermined distance, a speaker within the cylindrical member, a signal cord extended from the cylindrical member to an external low-frequency which is in turn electrically coupled to a stereo system, an outlet port at the other side of the backrest pad in communication with another one of the channels, and a relief valve in the outlet port for releasing air so as to reduce an internal pressure of the backrest pad, wherein when the stereo system is activated, signals are transmitted to the speaker through the low-frequency and the signal cord for generating music and simultaneously cold air is introduced into the backrest pad from an air conditioning of the motor vehicle via the inlet port by the activated motor so as to generate a resonant effect by combining the music with the cold air.
The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description taken with the accompanying drawings.

Backrest pad having cooling and sound producing arrangement


A polymer for resist use is obtainable from a monomer having formula (1) wherein R1 is H, CH3 or CF3, R2 and R3 each are H or a monovalent hydrocarbon group, X1 is a divalent hydrocarbon group, k1=0 or 1, and Z forms a 5 or 6-membered alicyclic ring. A resist composition comprising the polymer is shelf stable and displays a high dissolution contrast, controlled acid diffusion and low roughness during both alkaline development and organic solvent development.

To meet the demand for higher integration density and operating speed of LSIs, the effort to reduce the pattern rule is in rapid progress. The wide-spreading flash memory market and the demand for increased storage capacities drive forward the miniaturization technology. As the advanced miniaturization technology, manufacturing of microelectronic devices at the 65-nm node by the ArF lithography has been implemented in a mass scale. Manufacturing of 45-nm node devices by the next generation ArF immersion lithography is approaching to the verge of high-volume application. The candidates for the next generation 32-nm node include ultra-high NA lens immersion lithography using a liquid having a higher refractive index than water in combination with a high refractive index lens and a high refractive index resist film, extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography of 13.5 nm wavelength, and double patterning version of the ArF lithography, on which active research efforts have been made.
Besides the positive tone resist by alkaline development, a highlight is recently put on the negative tone resist by organic solvent development. It would be desirable if a very fine hole pattern, which is not achievable with the positive tone, is resolvable through negative tone exposure. To this end, a positive resist composition featuring a high resolution is subjected to organic solvent development to form a negative pattern. An attempt to double a resolution by combining two developments, alkaline development and organic solvent development is under study.
As the ArF resist composition for negative tone development with organic solvent, positive ArF resist compositions of the prior art design may be used. Such pattern forming processes are described in Patent Documents 1 to 3.
Independent of whether the resist material is subject to positive or negative tone development, methacrylate unit having an acid labile group is one of predominant constituent units relating to the basic function of the base resin in current chemically amplified resist materials. Likewise, lactone unit is an important unit that governs performance factors during resist pattern formation such as adhesion of base resin film to substrate. Heretofore, methacrylates of monocyclic lactone type such as butyrolactone ring or valerolactone ring and methacrylates of fused ring lactone units as typified by methacrylates of norbornane lactone have been proposed as disclosed in Patent Documents 4 to 6. Sultone units of cyclic sulfonic acid ester structure are also used for the same purpose as the lactone units (see Patent Document 7).
To meet the further miniaturization requirement, there is a desire to have a base resin unit capable of forming a fine size pattern of good profile with improved properties such as control of acid diffusion length and low roughness.

Monomer, polymer, resist composition, and patterning process


A backwards-compatible memory module is disclosed. According to one aspect, a memory module comprises addressable memory cells organized in organization units having a predetermined number of memory cells, a read/write control device clocked by a first clock signal, a plurality of prefetch registers for initially storing data read from the memory cells wherein the register size corresponds to the predetermined number. In a first operating mode, a switching device clocked by a second clock signal successively couples the prefetch registers to data input/output terminals. The number of data input/output terminals corresponds to the predetermined number. In a second operating mode, the switching device is controlled by at least one address signal and couples at least one of the prefetch registers to the data input/output terminals.

The increasing speed of computer processors requires, in a corresponding manner, a higher speed for memory accesses and faster memory modules, in particular for RAMs (random access memories).
Thus, in the past, various generations of RAMs have been developed whose access rate has risen continuously. The important factor is in each case to shorten the time intervals with which new data to be read from or written to the memory cell array is produced at the data inputs/outputs of the corresponding memory module. Starting from synchronous dynamic RAMs (SDRAM), so-called DDR SDRAMs have been developed, with twice the data rate (DDR=double data rate). More recently, the International JEDEC Standardization organization has proposed requirements for more recent generations of DDR2 and DDR3 SDRAMs.
Since the transition from one generation of memory chips to the next is in some cases associated with major changes, for example to the supply voltages, data rate, the form of corresponding control signals, memory modules of a more recent generation cannot be used in computer systems which have been developed for an older generation of memory modules. For example, for this reason, a DDR2 memory module cannot be operated as an SDR memory module (single data rate), because DDR2 provides, inter alia, differential control and clock signals and a 1.8 supply voltage. In contrast, SDR modules were operated with 3.5 volts and single-ended control and clock signals.
Since the life of many computer systems is greater than that of the memory modules that are used, memory manufacturers must therefore in general also stock and/or produce older generations of memory modules. This means that production capacities can be used only inefficiently, since the demand for older generations of memory modules generally decreases over time. The production capacity resources are therefore generally used for mass production of the latest generation of memory modules. However, in order to allow the production capacities to be completely exhausted, it is desirable to design new memory modules such that they can also be used in appliances which were originally developed to accommodate older generations of memory modules.


A transport roller device of a color thermal printer is constituted of a capstan roller and a main press roller for nipping recording paper therebetween and transporting the recording paper selectively in opposite directions. The transport roller device further has a supplemental guide member for keeping the recording paper in contact with a peripheral surface of the capstan roller through a constant angle in either transporting direction, thereby to maintain paper transporting amount per a rotational angle of the capstan roller unchanged.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a color thermal printer for recording a full-color image in a frame sequential fashion. More particularly, the present invention relates to a paper transport device for a color thermal printer, wherein recording paper is transported alternately in a recording direction and in the opposite direction through a single thermal head, and one color frame is recorded during one transport of the recording paper in the recording direction.
2. Background Arts
In a color thermal printer, at least three color frames are sequentially recorded in a recording area on the recording paper. To prevent color failure, accurate registration between the color frames is necessary, so the positioning of the recording area relative to a heating element array of the thermal head should also be accurate. Especially in a color thermal printer where the recording paper is transported repeatedly through a single thermal head, it is necessary to control the paper transport amount relative to the thermal head with high accuracy. For this reason, a transport roller device consisting of a capstan roller and a press roller is disposed in proximity to the thermal head in this type of color thermal printer. For more accurate and stable paper transport, it has been suggested to turn the recording paper around the capstan roller.
As an array of heating elements of the thermal head is directly or indirectly pressed onto the recording paper while heating the recording paper, the recording paper is heat-deformed or curled to some extent. Particularly where the recording paper turns around the capstan roller, the curl becomes so large that it can cause variation in transport amount of the recording paper per a rotational angle of the capstan roller. Especially in a color thermal printer having a single thermal head, as the color recording paper is heated at least three times for recording three color frames, the degree of curling increases gradually.
Because thermosensitive color recording paper has coloring layers sequentially overlaid on a support material, and the bottom coloring layer nearest to the support material has the lowest heat sensitivity, the bottom coloring layer is recorded at last with the largest heat energy among these coloring layers. Consequently, the degree of curling is getting larger as the recording proceeds. The more the recording paper curls, the more the transporting amount per a rotational angle of the capstan roller varies. In addition, the support material of the thermosensitive color recording paper is so stiff that it amplifies the influence of curling on the transporting amount by the capstan roller.
Moreover, it is necessary for the thermosensitive color recording paper to optically fix or deactivate the top and second from the top coloring layers after each recording of corresponding color frames, so as not to develop color any more during the next color recording. In a thermosensitive-type printer where optical fixing lamps for the two colors are provided side by side along a paper transport path, the thermosensitive recording paper is transported by a different amount for the optical fixing of one color from the other color, in order to exposure the same recording area to the light of each fixing lamp. The difference in the transport amount necessary for the optical fixing of one color from the other makes it difficult to measure the variation in the transporting amount of the curled recording paper by the capstan roller.

Paper transport device for color thermal printer


A trigger mechanism for watering nozzles includes a trigger whose lower end is pivotably connected to the handle and an activation rod has a first end inserted into a tube in the handle and a second end of the activation rod is in contact with the inside of the trigger. The first end of the activation rod may push a valve member in the tubular path in the handle to allow water to flow through the path and enter the barrel of the watering nozzle. The trigger can be fixed at operation position by pulling a movable member located above the trigger.

A conventional watering nozzle generally includes a handle connected with a hose so that water enters into the handle and a valve assembly is received in the handle and the valve assembly is cooperated with the trigger which can be pulled to activate the valve assembly to allow the water to flow through the barrel of the watering nozzle. One of the trigger mechanisms used on the watering nozzles includes a gear which is movably connected to the trigger and an engaging plate with toothed periphery can be movably engaged with the gear by pulling the trigger. By the engagement of the engaging plate and the gear, the user may control the volume of water entering the nozzle. However, the engaging plate and the gear are received in the handle and the user cannot see them so that when pulling the trigger to engaging the engaging plate with the gear, the users cannot be sure whether or not that the engaging plate is matched with the gear as desired. Sometimes, the users have to engage the engaging plate and the gear by way of try and error. The gear might be shifted by the movement of the engaging plate. Besides, the engaging plate is a thin plastic plate which might be deformed and cannot be perfectly engaged with the gear.


A transmitter for transmitting data in response to N clock signals with the same period T is provided. Every two adjacent clock signals have a phase difference of T/N therebetween. The transmitter includes a clock synthesizer and a multiplexer. The clock synthesizer sequentially generates N select signals in response to level-switch states of the N clock signals, respectively, during the period T. The multiplexer is electrically connected to the clock synthesizer for selecting one of N input data signals to be outputted in response to a corresponding one of the N select signals in turn. A method for transmitting data with eliminated duty-cycle effect is also disclosed.

In a typical computer system, a core logic circuit such as a chipset, is widely used to control data flows among a central processing unit (CPU), a system memory and a plurality of input/output (I/O) devices. Recently, the processing frequency of the core logic circuit is increasingly improved. The speeds of data flows on the I/O buses, however, could not catch up with the step of the chipset. The major factors include the design of transmitters/receivers, type of package, construction of substrates and routing of circuit boards, for example. Therefore, the limitation of the I/O buses on bandwidth is required to be overcome.
A Double Data Rate (DDR) transmitter 10, with reference to FIGS. 1(a) and 1(b), was developed to meet these needs. The DDR transmitter 10 outputs data at both the rising and falling edges of a clock signal CK_0. Since data transmission are performed twice for each cycle of the clock signal CK_0, the data throughput doubles.
The transmitter 10 principally comprises two flip-flop devices 12 and 14, a multiplexer 16 and a pad circuit 18. First, three clock signals CK_90, CK_180 and CK_270 having the same frequency as the clock signal CK_0 are generated by a phase-locked loop circuit (not shown). The phase differences between these clock signals CK_90, CK_180 and CK_270 and the clock signal CK_0 are 90, 180 and 270 degrees, respectively. The flip-flop device 14 is latched in response to the rising edge of the clock signal CK_90, and sequentially outputs low-bit data DL including the first, the third, . . . , and the (2J+1) data as output data DXL, where J is an integer. The flip-flop device 12 is latched in response to the rising edge of the clock signal CK_270, and sequentially outputs high-bit data DH including the second, the fourth . . . , and the (2J)th data as output data DXH. The multiplexer 16 selects one of the two output data DXH and DXL from the flip-flop devices 12 and 14, respectively, to be outputted as output data TX_D to the pad circuit 18. The multiplexer 16 allows the output data DXH and DXL to be alternately outputted in response to a select signal, i.e. the clock signal CK_0. When the clock signal CK_0 turns to a low level, the low-bit data DXL is selected as the output data TX_D. On the other hand, when the clock signal CK_0 turns to a high level, the multiplexer 16 selects the high-bit data DXH to be the output data TX_D. Therefore, the data TX_D is outputted at a double data rate.
As is known, the valid data bit time for transmitting data on an I/O bus depends on the clock signal. In order to obtain precise and uniform valid data bit time, it is important to acquire a clock signal with a balanced duty cycle, i.e. 50%. The clock signal for the present purpose is generally provided by a clock generator and outputted by a phase-locked loop circuit. The clock signal of a 50% duty cycle provides the data flowing through the bus a unified data bit time. Unfortunately, it is difficult to control the duty cycle of the clock signal to be exactly 50% all the time. In general, the duty cycle of the clock signal outputted by the phase-locked loop circuit has a variation between about 48% and about 52%. Therefore, the use of the clock signal CK_0 with unbalanced duty cycle as a select signal of the multiplexer 16 will lead to inconsistent data bit time on the I/O bus. Thus, the setup/hold time margin will greatly decrease. Furthermore, when the data transfer speed on the bus is required to be higher and higher, it is even difficult to design a phase-locked loop circuit capable of providing various clock signals with a variety of phase differences.

High speed data transmitter and transmitting method thereof


A method and an apparatus for making a hologram wherein interference patterns to be recorded on a hologram plate are prevented from travelling, thereby enabling a high quality hologram to be made. The method comprises the steps of forming a monitoring hologram on a portion of the hologram plate, producing a monitoring beam based on a laser beam, splitting the laser and monitoring beams into two beams, respectively, producing object, reference, monitoring object and monitoring reference beams, allowing the monitoring object and reference beams to be incident on the monitoring hologram to form monitoring interference patterns, sensing an intensity of the monitoring interference patterns, comparing the sensed intensity with a reference intensity, if the intensity is varied exceeding a tolerance limit of the intensity variation, blocking the laser beam and allowing the monitoring object beam and the monitoring reference beam to be incident on the monitoring hologram, if not so, allowing the object beam and the reference beam to be incident on the hologram plate, and performing repeatedly the sensing and comparing steps so that the object beam and the reference beam are incident on the hologram plate only for a predetermined time period to record the hologram based on an interference phenomenon thereof.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to making a hologram, and more particularly to a method and an apparatus for making a hologram wherein interference patterns to be recorded on a hologram plate are prevented from travelling to be efficiently modulated, thereby generating a high quality hologram.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Referring to FIG. 1, there is shown an arrangement of a conventional apparatus for making a transmissive hologram. As shown in this drawing, the conventional apparatus comprises a laser 11 as a light source, a shutter 12 for blocking or passing a laser beam L being emitted from the laser 11, a beam splitter 13 for splitting the laser beam L passed through the shutter 12 into two beams L1 and L2, reflection mirrors 14 and 15 for reflecting the beams L1 and L2 split by the beam splitter 13 at desired angles, respectively, a beam expander 16 and a lens 17 for producing an object beam Lo by expanding a diameter of the reflected beam L1 to allow the reflected beam L1 to light a desired area, a beam expander 18 and a lens 19 cooperative with each other for producing a reference beam Lr by expanding a diameter of the reflected beam L2 to allow the reflected beam L2 to light the same area as that of the reflected beam L1, and a hologram plate 20 for forming interference patterns 21 thereon based on an interference phenomenon of the object beam Lo and the reference beam Lr incident thereon, to record the hologram thereon.
The operation of the conventional transmissive hologram making apparatus with the above mentioned construction will hereinafter be described.
The laser beam L emitted from the laser 11 as a light source is blocked or passed according to an operating state of the shutter 12. Namely, when the shutter 12 is turned on, the laser beam L emitted from the laser 11 is applied through the turned-on shutter 12 to the beam splitter 13, which splits the laser beam L into the two beams L1 and L2 which are then reflected at their desired angles by the reflection mirrors 14 and 15, respectively.
The reflected beams L1 and L2 are altered, respectively, into the object beam Lo and the reference beam Lr, with the diameters thereof being expanded by the beam expanders 16 and 18 and the lenses 17 and 19, in order to light desired areas of the hologram plate 20. The object beam Lo and the reference beam Lr are incident on the hologram plate 20 at their desired angles.
In the above structure, if desired, the lenses 17 and 19 may be omitted and an object, an image of which is to be recorded, may be used instead such that a beam transmitted to or dispersed by the object is used as the object beam.
The object beam Lo and the reference beam Lr incident on the hologram plate 20 form a series of black and dark portions, or the optical interference patterns 21 on the hologram plate 20 based on an interference phenomenon. The formed interference patterns 21 are recorded on the hologram plate 20.
The process of recording the interference patterns 21 on the hologram plate 20 will hereinafter be described.
As the laser beam L from the laser 11 is passed through the shutter 12 in the turned-on state, a point P on the hologram plate 20 is exposed to the object beam Lo and the reference beam Lr. Present at the point P on the hologram plate 20 is an intensity I(P) resulting from the interference phenomenon of the object beam Lo and the reference beam Lr. Assuming that the time for which the laser 11 is at its ON state is T, energy at the point P on the hologram plate 20 can be expressed by the following equation: EQU E=I(P).multidot.T (1)
From the above equation (1), it can be seen that the point P on the hologram plate 20 is subject to the energy as much as E=I(P).multidot.T. As a latent image resulting from the energy is developed, it is recorded as the interference patterns 21 based on a variation in an optical nature on the hologram plate 20.
It is impossible to make a direct observation on the interference patterns 21 on the hologram plate 20 since adjacent ones of the interference patterns 21 are arranged to have, typically, an interval of 1 .mu.m with respect to each other.
In making the hologram as mentioned above, assuming that dl1 and dl2 are, respectively, paths along which the laser beam L from the laser 11 is split into the two beams L1 and L2 by the beam splitter 13 and then incident on the point P on the hologram plate 20, .lambda. and is a wavelength of the laser beam L, a path difference .delta. and a phase difference .DELTA..phi. between the two beams L1 and L2 can be expressed by the following equations: EQU .delta.=dl1-dl2 EQU .DELTA..phi.=2.pi..multidot.[(dl1-dl2)/] (2)
The intensity of the beams being, in a moment, incident on the point P on the hologram plate 20 is determined based on the phase difference .DELTA..phi. in the above equation (2). EQU That is, if .DELTA..phi.=2n.pi., then I(P)=Imax, and EQU if .DELTA..phi.=(2n+1).pi., then I(P)=Imin=0
For this reason, in order to accurately record the hologram on the hologram plate 20, the intensity of the beams incident on the hologram plate 20 must be maintained accurately and constantly for the exposure time T of the shutter 12 required to record the hologram. However, the paths dl1 and dl2 along which the laser beam L from the laser 11 is split into the two beams L1 and L2, altered into the object beam Lo and the reference beam Lr and then incident on the point P on the hologram plate 20 are liable to be varied for the exposure time T of the shutter 12, because of air flow and fine moving of the reflection mirrors 14 and 15, the beam expanders 16 and 18 and the lenses 17 and 19. As the beam incident paths dl1 and dl2 are varied, the phase difference .DELTA..phi. between the two beams L1 and L2 is varied, thereby causing the beam intensity I(P) at the point P on the hologram plate 20 to be varied.
The variation of the beam intensity I(P) at the point P on the hologram plate 20 for the exposure time T of the shutter 12 signifies travelling of the interference patterns 21 to be recorded on the hologram plate 21 for that time. The travelling of the interference patterns results in a degradation of the hologram to be finally obtained. For the purpose of preventing such degradation, it may be required to minimize the exposure time T of the shutter 12 to remove an external disturbance for that time. However, the exposure time may run into several seconds to several minutes if desired. As a result, the degradation problem cannot be solved without an accurate control for the positions of the optical elements through which the laser beam is passed.

Method and apparatus for making hologram


Systems and methods that automatically register a mobile computing unit on a wireless network area, via employing a voice recognition system associated with the mobile computing unit. A handshake can occur between a mobile computing unit and a server of the network upon utterance of predetermined voice (e.g., a sequence of letters) by the user into the voice recognition component. As such, a mass deployment of mobile computing units on the network can be facilitated in a secure manner with just enough information to access the network.

With the recent increase in network computing applications, wireless information transfer, and internet applications, the number of applications for which data processing systems are employed has increased correspondingly. Mobile computing units such as personal digital assistants (PDA), notebook and laptop personal computers (PCs) have become increasingly popular due to their portability and increased functionality.
Many of such mobile computing units are handheld devices, or palm-size devices, which comfortably fit within, or can be carried by one hand. For example, one commercially available mobile device is sold under the trade name HandHeld PC (or H/PC). Such units are generally assembled by enclosing internal electrical components, such as a central processing unit (CPU) board, display, keyboard, and internal wiring, within a housing made of plastic or another structural material. A communication interface is also provided and is commonly used to communicate with an associated network.
Among the most prevalent of network connection types is a wireless network, typically implemented using an IEEE 802.11x protocol, sometimes referred to as WiFi. However, in order for these devices to be able to access and communicate over the wireless network, the devices usually have to be pre-configured with a variety of network access parameters including a network identifier and a network key, among others.
The need to pre-configure devices with network access parameters presents at least two problems. First, a method or methods for configuring network access parameters frequently varies from device to device. Second, each device usually has to be individually configured so that the task of configuring a large number of devices can be prohibitively time-consuming. The magnitude of both these problems is compounded in cases when a network administrator needs to configure devices to access more than one wireless network. In some cases, a device may be incapable of being configured to access more than one wireless network.
Additionally, errors in device configuration can cause problems in running applications in one or more computers within the network system. At the same time, applications which are run by users typically do not include sophisticated methods for identifying and correcting network related errors. In particular, because inadvertent erroneous configurations are typically not identified for the application by the network, no corrective action can be taken. This results in confusion and frustration for consumers, who must then call support professionals to help solve their application problems. Moreover, although users may save static configuration settings for each network and subsequently apply them manually, manual processes are both error prone and time consuming.
Therefore, there is a need to overcome the aforementioned exemplary deficiencies associated with conventional devices.

Voice activated rapid deployment for mobile computers


Provided are a magnetic recording and/or reading apparatus and a method of manufacturing a power transmitting gear. The magnetic recording and/or reading apparatus includes a power transmitting gear. The power transmitting gear has one end coupled to a loading motor and the other end coupled to a plurality of link gears to transmit power from a loading motor to drive components during loading and unloading of a magnetic tape. The power transmitting gear includes a first gear engaged with a motor gear coupled to a shaft of the loading motor. The power transmitting gear also includes a second gear engaged with one of the plurality of link gears and a shaft member coupling the first and second gears. A space is formed inside the shaft member to prevent the shaft member from deforming during manufacture of the shaft member.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a magnetic recording and/or reading apparatus. More particularly, the present invention relates to a magnetic recording and/or reading apparatus including a power transmitting gear to transmit power from a loading motor to drive components driven during loading and unloading of magnetic tape.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, magnetic recording and/or reading apparatuses record information on and/or read information from a recording medium such as magnetic tape. Examples of the magnetic recording and/or reading apparatuses include video cassette tape recorders (VCRs), camcoders, and the like. Typical magnetic recording and/or reading apparatuses generally comprise a head drum installed on a main chassis, a loading motor, a capstan motor, and a pair of reel assemblies on which a cassette tape is placed.
The loading motor drives a main gear to power several components of the magnetic recording and/or reading apparatus coupled to the main gear to load and unload magnetic tape. For example, the main gear may drive a pole base unit, a pinch roller unit, and a brake unit.
FIG. 1 illustrates a power transmitting process of a loading motor and a main gear. Referring to FIG. 1, a loading motor 10, a power transmitting gear 20 coupled to the loading motor 10, a relay gear 32, and a main gear 34 are shown.
The power transmitting gear 20 includes a first gear 22 engaged with a motor gear 12 coupled to a shaft of the loading motor 10. Additionally, a second gear 26 engages with relay gear 32 coupled to the main gear 34, and a shaft member 24 couples the first and second gears 22, 26. The first gear 22, the second gear 26, and the shaft member 24 are formed of a general plastic material in consideration of manufacturing convenience and cost.
FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of the shaft member 24 of the power transmitting gear 20. As shown in FIG. 2, the shaft member 24 is bar-shaped and is preferably filled with a material such as plastic material; however, other suitable materials may be used. As described above, the power transmitting gear 20 is generally injection-molded using a plastic material in consideration of manufacturing convenience and cost. However, the shaft member 24 is susceptible to deformation due to conditions of the mold. In other words, the shaft member 24 may distort or twist due to several reasons including injection pressure, drying conditions, and the like during injection-molding. The loading motor 10 rotates at about 1,000 rpm during loading and/or unloading of the magnetic tape. Thus, directly coupling the power transmitting gear 20 to the loading motor 10 to spin is not normally desirable due to relatively serious twisting and swinging of the shaft member 24. As a result of such an arrangement, noise levels increase. In particular, abnormal noises are typically made during loading and unloading of the magnetic tape. In a case where the shaft member 24 is long, it is difficult to control swinging of the shaft member 24. As a result, levels of abnormal noise increase.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved power transmitting gear and a method of manufacturing the power transmitting gear to reduce twisting, swinging, and noise levels during operation.

Magnetic recording and/or reading apparatus and manufacturing method of power transmitting gear


A method of acquiring 3D color information and a 3D color information acquisition apparatus, suitable for obtaining a 3D model of an object, use a pattern light source to acquire topography data for the object. More than 3 basic colors are used to construct the pattern to increase resolution with great number of color combination. According to the color composition and combination, color distortion caused by model projection can be prevented, thereby increasing the reliability and broadening the application of the color acquisition device and method.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a 3D (three dimension) color information acquisition method and a 3D color information acquisition apparatus for use in 3D model imaging with high resolution. More particularly, the present invention relates to a 3D color information acquisition method and apparatus using more than 3 of major colors to encode a pattern and increase image resolution with a considerable reliability.
2. Related Art
Many 3D image acquisition methods have been provided in the prior art. One approach uses laser to scan topography of an object placed inside a box and to acquire colors of the object. Such a method requires expensive equipment and is time-consuming, which is not very practical in use. Another approach is to project a pattern in the form of color bands or color blocks on an object. A location of every color band or block is determined and compared to that of a reference pattern. Depth data of the object are calculated by using triangle distance measurement.
The profile, texture and material greatly affect the data acquisition for the object. Usually, the number of major constituting colors is 3 or 4 in view of stability. If the number of major constituting colors is higher than 4, then it is difficult to recognize the colors of the object when the pattern is projected on the object. If the number of major constituting colors is lower than 3, then this type of method is not suitable for use in encoding a large-size and high-density object image. It is an important issue to balance the resolution and the stability.
WO 00/70303 uses three basic colors, i.e., Red, Green, and Blue for color encoding. US 2002/0075456 uses four basic colors for color encoding. When the number of basic constituting colors is small, the total number of encoded color bands is small. In WO 00/70303, the number of encoded color bands is less than 100, while in US 2002/0075456 it is less than 64, which are not enough for the requirement of resolution in the current color image field. WO 00/70303 further teaches forming a redundant pattern at a center of the pattern to increase the number of encoded color bands, with a black region between two adjacent color bands. U.S. Pat. No. 6,549,288 uses gradual variation in intensity of light to form structured light pattern. However, the redundant pattern may disappear due to unknown reasons, which causes encoding failure. Furthermore, the color bands are greatly influenced by the object conditions. Reducing color gradation may constitute a solution to satisfy the resolution requirement, but it only partially solves the problem.

3D color information acquisition method and 3D color information acquisition device

Industrial Technology Research Institute


A support apparatus for a gas turbine shroud is disclosed. The apparatus includes an outer shroud block having a coupling connectable to a casing of the gas turbine and a shroud component having a forward flange and an aft flange. The shroud component is attached to the outer shroud block via the forward flange and the aft flange. The apparatus further includes a damper disposed between the outer shroud block and the shroud component and a biasing element disposed within the outer shroud block. A translational degree of freedom between the damper and the outer shroud block defines a direction of motion of the damper. The biasing element is in operable connection between the outer shroud block and the shroud component via the damper, a bias force of the biasing element directed along the direction of motion of the damper.

This invention relates to gas turbines and specifically, to gas turbine shroud supports.
In a gas turbine engine, such as may be used for electrical power generation for example, in order to achieve enhanced engine efficiency it is desired that buckets rotate within a turbine case or "shroud" with reduced clearance to provide enhanced efficiency relative to an amount of energy available from an expanding working fluid. Typically, increased operation efficiencies can be achieved by maintaining a reduced threshold clearance between the shroud and tips of the buckets, which prevents unwanted "leakage" of hot gas over tips of the buckets. Increased clearances lead to leakage problems and cause reduction in overall efficiency of the turbine.
Ceramic matrix composites offer advantages as a material of choice for shrouds in a turbine for interfacing with the hot gas path. The ceramic matrix composites can withstand high operating temperatures and are suitable for use in the hot gas path of gas turbines. Recently, melt-infiltrated (MI) silicon-carbon/silicon-carbon (SiC/SiC) ceramic matrix composites (CMC) have been formed into high temperature, static components, such as gas turbine shrouds for example. Because of their heat capability, ceramic matrix composite turbine components, such as components made from MI-SiC/SiC components for example, generally allow for a reduction in cooling flow, as compared to metallic components.
It will be appreciated that the shrouds are subject to vibration due to pressure pulses of the hot gases as each bucket passes the shroud. Moreover, because of this proximity to high-speed rotating buckets, the vibration may be at or near resonant frequencies and thus require damping to enhance life expectancy during long-term commercial operation of the turbine. Ceramic composites require unique attachment and have multiple failure mechanisms such as wear, oxidation, stress concentration and damage to the ceramic composite when configuring the composite for attachment to the metallic components. Accordingly, there is a need for responding to dynamics-related issues relating to the attachment of ceramic composite shrouds to metallic components of the turbine to minimize adverse modal response.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.


The monitoring device of a neutral conductor and earth conductor comprises processing means, and first voltage detection means to supply a first signal representative of a voltage between neutral and earth to said processing means. The device also comprises second voltage detection means to supply a second signal representative of a voltage between phase and earth to said processing means, and third voltage detection means to supply a third signal representative of a voltage between phase and neutral to said processing means. The processing means supply a loss neutral of signal and/or a loss of earth signal according to the values of the first, second and third signal. The electrical switchgear apparatus comprises such a monitoring device to trigger opening of main contacts.

The invention relates to a device for monitoring neutral and earth conductors comprising:                processing means to supply a loss of neutral detection signal, and        first voltage detection means designed to be connected between a neutral conductor and an earth conductor to supply a first signal representative of a voltage between neutral and earth to said processing means.
The invention also relates to an electrical switchgear apparatus comprising main electrical contacts connected between an input and an output, a trip relay for triggering opening of said main contacts, the input comprising a neutral conductor terminal, an earth conductor terminal and at least one phase conductor terminal.

Device for monitoring a neutral and earth break and electrical switchgear apparatus comprising such a device


In case that a difference between a frequency of an input signal, which has been subjected to a quadrature modulation, and a frequency of an oscillator is large, a center of spectrum of a mixer output signal shifts, and strays from a pass band of a roll-off filter. As a result deterioration of a bit error rate characteristic is leading. A phase rotator is provided at a front stage of the roll-off filter, and a phase rotation operation of the phase rotator allows a base band signal to transmit through the pass band of the roll-off filter. Moreover, in a state where a carrier synchronization is not established, a signal which changes its frequency by a range in accordance with an amplitude of a periodic waveform signal is output to the phase rotator, and a central frequency of the base band signal is swept by the phase rotator, whereby the base band signal transmits through the pass band of the roll-off filter.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a quadrature demodulator used for a digital radio communication system and the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 9 is a block diagram showing a conventional quadrature demodulator. In FIG. 9, reference numeral 101 denotes a quadrature detector, and reference numeral 102 denotes an oscillator. An input signal that has been subjected to a quadrature modulation, that is, an input intermediate frequency signal (hereinafter referred to as an input IF signal), is converted to two quadrature components Ich1 and Qch1 by the quadrature detector 101 and the oscillator 102. Two outputs from the quadrature detector 101 are respectively converted to digital signals Ich3 and Qch3 by an A/D converter 103, and then output to an ROF (roll-off filter) 105. The signals which have been transmitted through the ROF 105 are output to a phase-rotator 104.
Herein, the phase-rotator 104, a PD (phase error detector) 108, a LPF (loop filter) 109, an adder 112 and a NCO (numerically controlled oscillator) 110 constitute a PLL (phase locked loop). In a state where carrier synchronization is not established, a signal indicating an asynchronous state is output from a synchronization detector 107 to a frequency controller 111. In the asynchronous state, the frequency controller 111 outputs a frequency signal such as a triangular wave to the adder 112.
On the other hand, a phase difference between the input IF signal and the output of the oscillator 102 is detected in the PD 108, and high frequency components are removed by the LPF 109. The signal from which the high frequency components are removed by the LPF 109 is output to the adder 112.
The adder 112 adds the output of the frequency controller 111 to the output of the LPF 109, and outputs the results to the NCO 110. The NCO 110 outputs sinusoidal signals (Sin ωt and cos ωt) to the phase-rotator 104, and said sinusoidal signals change their frequencies in accordance with the signal input to the NCO 110. The phase-rotator 104 performs a complex multiplication by use of the output of the ROF 105 and the output of the NCO 110, and performs a phase rotation so as to correct the phase shift between the input IF signal and the output of the oscillator 102. When the carrier synchronization is established, the value of the output of the frequency controller 111 at that time is kept, and the output of the frequency controller 111 is supplied to the NCO 110 via the adder 112.
In such a quadrature demodulator, when the difference between the frequency of the input IF signal and the frequency of the oscillator 102 becomes large, the center of spectrum of a mixer output signal shifts as shown by the broken lines of FIG. 6, and deviates from the pass band of the ROF 105. For this reason, data whose frequency deviates from the band of the ROF 105 vanishes, and deterioration of a bit error rate characteristic or the like is incurred as a result.
As a method to solve the deterioration, for example, a structure is conceived, in which the ROF 105 is arranged on the output side of the phase-rotator 104 as shown in FIG. 10. However, in this structure, the ROF 105 is arranged in the PLL composed of the phase-rotator 104, the PD 108, the LPF 109, the adder 112 and the NCO 110. As the ROF 105, a digital filter is usually used. Since a delay exists between a signal input of the ROF 105 and a signal output of the ROF 105, this PLL has a larger delay than the PLL in the demodulator of FIG. 9, therefore noises caused by the loop itself becomes much, and deteriorates the error rate characteristic. If a noise band width of the loop was narrowed in order to suppress the noises in the loop itself, a deterioration of the error rate characteristic would be essentially inevitable due to phase noises of the oscillator 102 and the like.
And above-mentioned conventional quadrature demodulators are disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2000-41074, "Demodulator" (Inventor: Eisaku Sasaki).


Disclosed are devices for dispensing air treatment chemicals, and refill units for use therewith. Some of these devices have a well facing the heater and a transparent wall to view the use up of the air treatment chemical. Other of these devices have a refill with wells positioned in opposing directions.

The present invention relates to devices that dispense a volatile air treatment chemical by heating a chemical housed in a reservoir. It also relates to improved refills for use with such devices.
The prior art is replete with attempts to efficiently dispense air treatment chemicals such as insect control agents (insecticides, insect repellents, insect growth regulators, attractants, synergists, etc.), fragrances and deodorizers. See e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 6,551,560. The disclosure of this patent, and of all other patents referred to herein, are incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein.
Conventional devices typically dispense a volatile air treatment chemical by heating a substrate on one side, thereby causing dispensing in an opposed direction. The heating source is typically an electrical heater.
A variety of air treating functions can be achieved with such devices. For example, a volatile insecticide can be dispensed in this way and then used to inhibit mosquito biting in a confined bedroom. Alternatively, a deodorizing or other odor control material can be dispensed to overcome malodors, or to simply provide a desired fragrance.
One problem with such devices is that the chemical to be dispensed, typically coated or impregnated on a porous substrate of some kind, usually rests against or near a heater. The heater heats the substrate, causing the volatized air treatment chemical to be driven off in a direction away from (essentially perpendicular to) a heater surface. See e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 4,228,124.
This can create some inefficiencies. For example, the portion of the material adjacent the heater can act as an insulator for the portion of the substrate which is releasing the active chemical, making control of the dispensing more difficult.
Another problem with such devices is that it may be difficult to determine when such a device is used up. Yet another problem relates to a lack of flexibility where multiple chemicals are to be dispensed which are optimally dispensed under different heating conditions.
Thus, there is a need for improved devices which address these problems.

Air treatment device with reservoir refill


A system and method for detecting faults in wafer fabrication process tools by acquiring real-time process parameter signal data samples used to model the process performed by the process tool. The system includes a computer system including a DAQ device, which acquires the data samples, and a fault detector program which employs a process model program to analyze the data samples for the purpose of detecting faults. The model uses data samples in a reference database acquired from previous known good runs of the process tool. The fault detector notifies a process tool operator of any faults which occur thus potentially avoiding wafer scrap and potentially improving mean time between failures. The fault detector also receives notification of the occurrence of process events from the process tool, such as the start or end of processing a wafer, which the fault detector uses to start and stop the data acquisition, respectively. The fault detector also receives notification of the occurrence of a new process recipe and uses the recipe information to select the appropriate model for modeling the data samples. The fault detector employs a standard data exchange interface, such as DDE, between the fault detector and the model, thus facilitating modular selection of models best suited to the particular fabrication process being modeled. Embodiments are contemplated which use a UPM model, a PCA model, or a neural network model.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to semiconductor wafer fabrication and more particularly to the acquiring of data during a wafer fabrication process performed by wafer fabrication equipment in real-time and detecting fault conditions in the equipment and/or process by modeling the acquired data.
2. Description of the Relevant Art
In a typical semiconductor manufacturing process, semiconductor wafers are moved through a wafer fabrication assembly line. At each location in the assembly line, processing equipment, or processing tools, perform processing operations to modify the wafers such as by adding layers to the wafers of various materials, and modifying the layers to form a completed product. Examples of processing operations are metal deposition, oxide growth, and source/drain implant.
As the wafers are moved through the assembly line, periodic quality checks are performed on the wafers. The quality checks typically include measuring widths of microscopic lines and film thicknesses on the wafer to detect aberrations. Unfortunately, the measurements can often be made only after the material has undergone processing operations subsequent to those which introduce aberrations. Consequently, the checks can be used to prevent adding more cost to an unusable lot of wafers, but not to save the processed lot from being scrapped. A lot is defined as a set of wafers, typically contained within a wafer boat or cassette.
The quality check measurements add cost in the form of process time and equipment expense. Furthermore, an interval of time typically occurs between introduction of the aberration and detection of the aberration. During the interval, more unusable lots of wafers are processed. This problem is widely known and understood in the semiconductor industry, and various attempts have been and are being made to apply what is called "advanced process control" (APC) to address the problem. In particular, "Fault Detection and Classification" (FDC) systems are one type of APC system which attempts to address the problem.
An FDC system directly monitors process equipment parameters in order to detect conditions which may cause aberrations as they occur. Examples of process parameters are temperature, pressure, power, and flow rates of process materials. A process parameter may be defined as a stimuli upon a processing tool necessary to effectuate a processing outcome such as metal deposition, oxide growth, source/drain implant.
FDC systems collect process parameter data and analyze the data for an abnormality, or fault, during the operation of the process equipment. An example of a process fault is a significant drop in temperature from the temperature required to perform the given process operation, e.g., thermal oxidation. Another example of a fault is a spike in a flow rate of a process material, such as helium. If a fault is detected, the system may have various means of reacting, such as notifying an equipment operator or halting the process equipment. An FDC system typically collects data in one of two methods.
The first data collection method is to receive process parameter data which the process equipment provides through a communications port in the process equipment. Most processing equipment includes built in sensors to gather process parameter data for at least some of the process parameters which the equipment uses. Examples of common process equipment communications ports are RS-232 ports and parallel ports. The data, which may also include state information such as a currently running recipe or recipe step, and event information such as notification of a new wafer or new lot of wafers, is commonly communicated via the SECS-II (Semiconductor Equipment Communications Standard II) or Generic Equipment Model (GEM) protocols on the equipment communications port. A recipe may be defined as a set of process "ingredients", i.e., process parameters, "prepared" according to a set of process steps.
This first method of collecting data has some disadvantages. First, a monitoring system which uses sensor data provided by the process equipment is dependent on the equipment control system and therefore does not perform an independent audit. Second, the data collection rate may be inadequate due to the data transfer rate limitations of the communications port and/or the fact that the processor typically included in process equipment must perform other tasks in addition to collecting and providing process parameter data. For example, a Rapid Thermal Process (RTP) may require high data sampling rates for the temperature signals which are beyond those which may be provided via the communications port. Third, the process equipment may not be able to provide process parameter data on a linear time scale, i.e., at a constant sampling rate, thus complicating analysis of the received data.
A second data collection method employs a data acquisition (DAQ) device. According to this second method, sensors, or transducers, are placed inside or outside the processing equipment which measure the process parameters and convert the measurements into electrical signals, typically voltage signals, which are provided to the DAQ device.
An advantage of the second data collection method is that the DAQ device is capable of acquiring process parameter signal data samples at a constant and relatively high sample rate. Furthermore, the DAQ device is capable of acquiring data samples independent of the process equipment itself. Furthermore, the DAQ device is capable of monitoring signals which may not monitored by the equipment itself, such as room temperature, barometric pressure, etc., or process parameter signals which the equipment was not designed to measure. A disadvantage of the second data collection method is the lack of equipment state or event information, such as the current recipe, process step, wafer number, lot number, etc. since there is no connection to the processing equipment processor. Thus, the equipment state or event information can only be inferred.
Thus, an FDC system which incorporates the advantages of both the data collection methods, i.e., a system which both collects state or event information from the process equipment and acquires real-time process parameter data independent from the intelligence, i.e., processor, of the process equipment is desired.
Once the process parameter data is collected, the data may be analyzed by one of several methods. One data analysis method is to employ a model which predicts expected values of the collected data and provides an indication of the relative conformance of a wafer fabrication process being monitored to a desired process. Different modeling methods may be superior for different wafer fabrication processes or process operations. Therefore, a system which is modular with respect to modeling methods, i.e., allows different process models to be employed which best model the particular process being performed, is desired.

System and method for performing real time data acquisition, process modeling and fault detection of wafer fabrication processes


An elastic member for pressing is provided in a prescribed location in an area where the developer carrier comes in contact with the discharging member, in order to bring the discharging member into contact with the developer carrier so that mechanical peeling of the residual developer on the developer carrier is not caused, and the discharging member is provided with a bias power supply for setting bias in a direction imparting to the discharging member a force for electrically drawing the residual developer on the developer carrier away from the developer carrier, and after thus reducing the electric adhesion of the residual developer to the developer carrier, the developer feed member removes the residual developer on the developer carrier in the vicinity of disjunction area or in the contact area of the developer carrier and the developer feed member, thereafter applies new developer in a developer container to the developer carrier in the vicinity of approaching area or in the contact-starting area of the developer carrier and the developer feed member.

(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a developing device using one-component toner, more specifically, relates to a developing device used for an image forming device such as copying machines using electrophotography, printers and electrostatic recording devices.
(2) Description of the Related Art
The developing device using one-component toner is easy to reduce the size and easy to handle, but there is a problem in transferring and charging the toner and making the toner uniformly thin. A general developing device will now be described with reference to FIG. 1.
As shown in FIG. 1, an electrostatic image is formed on the surface of a photosensitive drum 51, which is an electrostatic latent image carrier, by means of a latent image-forming means (not shown). A developing roller 100 is disposed in a position opposite to the photosensitive drum 51 as a developer carrier, and on the surface of the developing roller 100, toner 2 which is the developer is adhered. The development is carried out by adhering the toner 2 to the photosensitive drum 51 to visualize the electrostatic image. The charged toner 2 is formed in a thin layer on the developing roller 100.
As for the means for forming toner in a thin layer, the toner 2 is first supplied and adhered on the developing roller 100 by a toner feed roller 200 which is a developer feed member brought into contact with the developing roller 100 and is connected to a bias power supply 210 for feeding toner. Thereafter, the toner 2 on the developing roller 100 is formed uniformly in a thin layer by a blade 300 which is a developer regulating member, as the developing roller 100 rotates. Furthermore, voltage for the developing bias is impressed to the developing roller 100 by a power supply 110 and blade bias voltage is impressed to the blade 300 by a power supply 390.
With such a developing device 1b using one-component developer, however, when the residual toner adhered to the developing roller 100 is not removed after the development, the developing pattern formed by the residual toner remains until the next development, resulting in a memory image. To solve this problem, a Mylar sheet 430 (a residual toner removing member) abutting to the developing roller 100 after the development is newly provided to scratch the residual toner on the developing roller 100.
With the developing device using conventional non-magnetic developer (hereinafter referred to as "toner"), as a method for supplying the toner, there have been disclosed many methods, such as the one using an elastic foamed body which is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei 2-191974. The one using the elastic foamed body as the method for supplying the toner is capable of supplying the toner to the developer carrier (hereinafter referred to as a "developing roller"), but it has been difficult to remove the residual toner on the developing roller which passed through the developing zone. In particular, when the supply voltage having the same polarity as the charging polarity of the toner is impressed in order to supply toner sufficiently and stably, removal of the residual toner on the developing roller becomes more difficult. As a result, in the toner layer on the developing roller, toner which was not consumed in the developing zone and toner newly supplied by the developing roller mingle together to deteriorate the developing properties and cause a development history (development unevenness).
Therefore, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. Sho 60-7790, there is a method in which a roller for recovering the residual toner from the developing roller is provided in a prescribed location, and bias voltage having the opposite polarity to the charged polarity of the toner is impressed on the recovering roller to remove the residual toner on the developing roller after it passed through the developing zone. With this method, however, a roller for recovering the toner is separately required, and the cost increases.
Moreover, as disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 2557826 (issued in 1996), there is a method in which a thin plate having elasticity is brought into contact with the developing roller to remove the residual toner on the developing roller. Moreover, there is another method in which a thin plate is brought into contact with the developing roller and bias voltage is impressed to the thin plate to remove the residual toner on the developing roller.
With these methods, when the residual toner on the developing roller is removed, it is necessary to bring the toner removing member into deep contact with the developing roller. Furthermore, in the case of removing the residual toner on the developing roller electrically, the discharging effect is increased by pressing the toner removing member into deep contact with the developing roller and enlarging the contact area.
As a result, a mechanical stress is applied to the residual toner on the developing roller, and the toner is easily deteriorated, thus deterioration of the developing properties, such as filming of the toner on the surface of the developing roller may be caused.
On the other hand, with the technique disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei 2-191974, it is described therein that the cell density of the elastic foamed body is preferably from 10 cells per 25 mm to 200 cells per 25 mm, and cells are brought into contact with each other so that the contact depth is from 0.5 mm to 2 mm and the contact width is from 0.2 mm to 5 mm, or cells are closely arranged so that the distance between the both surfaces is not larger than 2 mm. However, the above-mentioned cell density corresponds to the cell density of almost all foamed elastic body, and there may be a problem occurred at the time of actual use. For example, if the cell density is low, the toner easily penetrates into the foamed cell of the elastic foamed body to make the elastic foamed body hard. As a result, increase of the driving torque of the feed roller or decrease of the volume of toner transferred by the feed roller is caused. On the contrary, if the cell density is high, the toner cannot easily penetrate into the foamed cell of the elastic foamed body, but the volume of toner transferred by the feed roller decreases. As a result, the density necessary for development cannot be obtained, and since the hardness of the elastic foamed body itself is high, the torque increases, the contact pressure between the developing roller and the feed roller becomes high, and the toner is subjected to the mechanical stress and becomes easily deteriorated.
Furthermore, since the contact conditions has a wide range, the feed properties differ largely. For example, if the contact depth is large, the contact pressure between the developing roller and the feed roller becomes high, the driving torque of both rollers increases, and the toner is subjected to the mechanical stress and easily deteriorated. On the contrary, if the contact depth is small, the capability of the feed roller to apply the toner to the developing roller decreases, and the feed roller cannot feed the toner sufficiently. In addition, the accuracy of the outer diameter of the feed roller is required, but the preparation thereof with the elastic foamed body is difficult.
Furthermore, with a feeding method using an elastic foamed body as a feed member, the developing roller and the feed member are brought into contact with each other. In this case, the developing roller having hardness higher than that of the feed roller is normally used. For example, as a material of the developing roller, a metal sleeve or an elastic solid rubber is often used. Therefore, in the contact area of the developing roller and the feed roller, modified feed rollers using an elastic foamed body having hardness lower than that of the developing roller accounts for the majority thereof, and the state of the contact pressure between the developing roller and the feed roller is mostly determined by the hardness of the feed roller. That is to say, even if the contact depth of the developing roller and the feed roller is the same amount, if the hardness of the feed roller is high, the pressure in the contact area of the developing roller and the feed roller increases, on the contrary, if the hardness of the feed roller is low, the pressure in the contact area decreases.
Furthermore, with a toner feeding method using an elastic foamed body, toner adhered on the surface of the feed roller and toner infiltrating shallowly into the inside of cells are transferred to the surface of the developing roller, as the feed roller rotates. The toner which has reached the contact area of the developing roller and the feed roller is frictionally charged and moves to the surface of the developing roller. At that time, however, the toner transferred to the surface of the developing roller is only the toner existing close to the outermost layer on the surface of the feed roller, and the quantity of toner mechanically applied to the developing roller decreases, hence poor supply of toner is easily caused on the developing roller. At the time of developing solid black, sufficient image density cannot be obtained.
Therefore, when the followability of the image density at the time of printing solid black is kept during development, if supply bias having the same polarity as the charging polarity of the toner is applied to the toner feed roller in order to feed toner sufficiently and stably, the effect of discharging member obtained by mechanically removing the residual toner on the developing roller with the feed roller is hardly obtained. That is to say, the electric adhesion of the residual toner with the developing roller after passing through the developing zone is decreased by the discharging member, but by applying the supply bias to the feed roller, the residual toner removed by the mechanical force of the feed roller adheres again on the surface of the developing roller due to the electric field in the feeding direction of the toner, formed between the developing roller and the feed roller, in the vicinity of disjunction or in the contact area of the feed roller and the developing roller. As a result, there is a possibility to cause a difference in the charge quantity or a difference in the adhesion quantity per unit area between the residual toner on the developing roller and the newly supplied toner, and it appears as density unevenness (development history) on the output image.

Image developing device using a one-component toner


A wireless local area network receiver having separate automatic gain control (AGC) loops for providing a radio frequency AGC and a baseband frequency AGC, as well as a DC offset cancellation circuit. The AGC loops control a low noise amplifier amplifying the received RF signal, and the baseband signal or signals from a mixer of I and Q mixers. The DC offset compensation loop is also responsive to the baseband AGC signal to maintain a substantially fixed gain in the DC offset compensation feedback. Details of various embodiments are disclosed, including embodiments for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) that provide the AGC operation and the DC offset cancellation to the desired levels within the relatively short period of a preamble that precedes the data transmission.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to OFDM based wireless receivers, and more particularly to automatic gain control (AGC) and DC offset cancellation in a wireless receiver having a differential path.
2. Prior Art
Receivers are necessary components of communication links, and are used, for example, in two-way cellular phone communications and wireless local area networks. A simplified block diagram of a typical prior-art wireless receiver 100 having an inphase or "I" path and a quadrature or "Q" path is shown in FIG. 1. The "I" and "Q" paths are typical of a direct-conversion receiver which employ the two channels, commonly referred to as the "I" and "Q" paths. In such a receiver, a signal from an antenna is fed to low-noise amplifier (LNA) 110. LNA 110 is capable of a low or high gain, controlled through a baseband chip (not shown). LNA 110 is needed for the purpose of amplifying weak signals without introducing much noise. Furthermore, the gain of LNA 110 is not continuous, as it has only two gain settings, being externally controlled. An AGC circuit is connected from the output of a baseband amplifier (BBA), for example BBA 140-I, and its output connected to the amplification control signal of BBA 140-I. LNA 110 feeds a mixer 120, for example mixer 120-I, which mixes down the received high-frequency signal to the baseband (including 0 Hz), by effectively multiplying the received and then amplified signal with a local-oscillator (LO) signal produced by an oscillator (not shown), for example LO "I", in the receiver. The undesirable signals at very high frequencies produced by this process are filtered out by using a band pass filter BBF, for example BBF 130-I. The filtered signal is then amplified by a baseband amplifier (BBA), for example BBA 140-I, and is output as VI of the "I" channel. The gain of BBA 140-I is made variable through AGC action; the gain is made large when the received signal is small, and small when the received signal is large. The objective of this operation is to keep the output signal to a well-defined power so that it can be encoded by an analog-to-digital converter or otherwise used without undue distortion and noise. There is a symmetrical channel to provide the "Q" channel of the wireless receiver, the I and Q signals to the mixers being 90° out of phase.
A wireless receiver, operating for example in accordance with the IEEE 802.11a standard, uses orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) with a preamble sequence 200 shown in FIG. 2. The preamble field is composed of ten repetitions of a "short training sequence" 210, used for AGC convergence, diversity selection, timing acquisition and DC offset cancellation in the receiver. The preamble field is further composed of two repetitions of a "long training sequence" 220, used for channel estimation and fine frequency acquisition, preceded by a guard interval 230. A short OFDM training symbol consists of 12 sub-carriers (±4, ±8, ±12, ±16, ±20 and ±24 with 312.5 KHz of spacing, for 802.11a and ±2, ±6, ±10, ±14, ±18 and ±22 with 312.5 KHz of spacing, for Hiperlan2). As there is no DC content in the spectral range but there is a DC offset error, this leads to an additional error in the AGC functionality. Specific operation of an AGC loop is well-known in the art and therefore a detailed analysis is not provided herein. Prior art solutions for AGC using frequency offset estimation methods first perform a coarse measure using the last few, usually three, short symbols of the first portion of the preamble. After that a second fine measure is performed, using the second portion of the preamble. The number of symbols used for coarse measurement is a compromise between the need to achieve maximum precision which requires a large number of symbols and the phase ambiguity where a larger estimation range must be used and therefore a small number of symbols. The resultant compromise is as described above, leading to a less accurate estimation of frequency offset, impacting the capability of the AGC.
In view of the limitations of prior art solution, it would be advantageous to provide means for an effective AGC for system 100, preferably less dependent on the number of symbols. It would be further advantageous if such AGC means would further control DC offset cancellation means without interfering with the AGC operation.

Wireless LAN receiver with I and Q RF and baseband AGC loops and DC offset cancellation


An imaging lens includes a first lens having positive refractive power; a second lens having positive refractive power; and a third lens having positive refractive power, arranged in the order from an object side to an image plane side. The first lens and the third lens have object-side surfaces and image plane-side surfaces, curvature radii of which are both positive. When the first lens has refractive power P1, the second lens has refractive power P2, the third lens has refractive power P3, the first lens has a focal length f1, and the third lens has a focal length f3, the imaging lens satisfies the following conditional expressions:5.0<(P1+P3)/P2<8.56<f3/f1<30.

The present invention relates to an imaging lens for forming an image of an object on an imaging element such as a CCD sensor and a CMOS sensor. In particular, the present invention relates to an imaging lens suitable for mounting in a relatively small camera, such as a camera for mounting in a portable device, e.g., a cellular phone, a smartphone, a portable information terminal, and a digital still camera, a security camera, a vehicle onboard camera, and a network camera.
In these years, in place of cellular phones that are intended mainly for making phone calls, so-called "smartphones" have been more widely used, i.e., cellular phones with such functions as portable information terminals (PDA) and/or personal computers. Since the smartphones generally are highly functional as opposed to the cellular phones, it is possible to directly process images taken by a camera thereof in various applications without importing in personal computers or the like. In case of the smartphones, it is possible to use the images taken with the cameras thereof in various applications. For example, it is possible to use the images for game characters of online games or for models in makeup simulations. Such uses of the images, which were not conventionally common, are becoming increasingly popular every year.
Generally speaking, an imaging lens for mounting in a portable device such as a cellular phone or a smartphone, which is developed for advanced users, requires optical performances comparable to digital still cameras, including high resolution and color reproducibility, as well as a small size due to limited space in a portable device. On the other hand, in case of uses in the above-described applications, it is not always necessary that an imaging lens for mounting in a camera has high resolution, but rather, it is more important that an imaging lens has a wide angle of view, i.e., a wide angle, for some applications.
A lens configuration composed of three lenses can relatively satisfactorily correct aberrations and is also suitable for downsizing, so that it has been widely used as a lens configuration for the above-described imaging lens of a camera for mounting in a portable device. When the imaging lens has the three-lens configuration, one of most well-known configurations includes a first lens having positive refractive power, a second lens having negative refractive power, and a third lens having positive or negative refractive power, arranged in the order from an object side.
According to the lens configuration described above, the second lens has negative refractive power. Accordingly, it is relatively easy to achieve downsizing of the imaging lens. In addition, since it is also possible to correct a chromatic aberration generated in the first lens through the second lens, it is one of effective lens configurations in view of downsizing of an imaging lens and satisfactory correction of aberrations.
According to the lens configuration described above, however, the second lens has negative refractive power. Accordingly, when it is attempted to achieve both a small size of an imaging lens and a wide angle, refractive power of each lens tends to be relatively strong. Further, it is often necessary to increase fabrication accuracy and/or assembling accuracy of the lens. For this reason, recently, there has been also a proposal of a lens configuration, in which refractive powers of all the three lenses are positive. As an imaging lens having such three-lens configuration, for example, there is known the one described in Patent Reference.    Patent Reference: Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2012-14139
According to the imaging lens disclosed in Patent Reference, the second lens and the third lens are formed to have aspheric surfaces having inflexion points. When the lenses have the aspheric surfaces, it is achievable to obtain a small size of the imaging lens and a wide angle, as well as satisfactorily correcting aberrations.
According to the imaging lens described in Patent Reference, it is achievable to downsize the imaging lens while satisfactorily correcting aberrations to some extent. However, uses of images taken with a camera have been more and more various each year, and even wider angle is demanded as one of added values of the imaging lens. Although the imaging lens described in Patent Reference has a wider angle than conventional one, there is a limit itself in achieving even wider angle.
Here, it is not a problem specific to an imaging lens for mounting in a portable device such as cellular phone or smartphone to attain both a small size and a wide angle while satisfactorily correcting aberrations. Such a problem is common also among imaging lenses for mounting in relatively small cameras such as digital still cameras, security cameras, vehicle onboard cameras, and network cameras.
In view of the above-described problems in conventional techniques, an object of the present invention is to provide an imaging lens that can attain both a small size and a wide angle, while satisfactorily correcting aberrations.
Further objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description of the invention.


An electrical interconnect assembly, comprising an electrical conductor a housing having a terminal end, a connector connected to the conductor and the housing and extending along a longitudinal axis from the terminal end of the housing, the connector having a terminal surface spaced from the housing, a light emitter within the housing, and a light guide within the housing to direct light from the light emitter to exit the housing from the terminal end to substantially illuminate the connector. Also, an electrical interconnect assembly comprising, a housing having a terminal end, a receptacle in the housing, the receptacle having an opening at the terminal end of the housing and a back wall, and a longitudinal axis extending orthogonally from the back wall; and a light emitter within the receptacle, the receptacle directing light from the light emitter to exit the housing from the terminal end to substantially illuminate the receptacle.

1. Technical Field
The present system relates to electrical interconnect assemblies and more specifically to lighted interconnect assemblies having a connector or receptacle and a light emitter that illuminates the connector or receptacle to aid in locating the lighted connector into a receptacle or the lighted receptacle into a connector.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electrical interconnect assemblies are used for a multitude of purposes. Universal Serial Bus (USB) electrical connector assemblies, for example, permit communication between a computer and electrical devices. USB is an external computer interface industrial standard that defines the communication protocols, cables and connectors that enable such communication between devices. Typically, a USB receptacle, which is a male receiving portion, mounts to a computer or other device for receiving a USB connector or plug of an electrical connector assembly. USB devices, for example, may be connected to a USB receptacle of a computer using a USB cable having two terminal ends with USB plugs inserted into the USB receptacles of the computer and electrical device.
Most computers today include multiple USB receptacles for connecting USB devices such as PDAs, cellular phones and video game consoles, and for connecting computer peripherals to permit communication between the computer and printers, scanners, keyboards, pointing devices, and external hard drives. USB receptacles also permit communication between computers and mass storage devices, often referred to as a flash drive or a thumb drive, for storing large quantities of data. Even certain LED, Plasma and LCD televisions now include multiple USB receptacles.
USB cabling has eliminated the need for a separate power charger for a portable device since power is provided from the computer to the device by the USB cable. Some cable connectors include lights, which indicate when power is received from the computer. Thus, one knows when the USB cable is successfully connected to the computer. However, since power is not provided until after the USB cable is plugged into the receptacle, this light cannot be used to illuminate the USB connector or receptacle when inserting the connector into the receptacle. Since USB receptacles are small and often in discrete locations that are not well-lit, many find it difficult to align and insert connectors into receptacles. Further, because it is difficult to see the receptacle receiving the connector, it is easy to insert the connector into a wrong-sized receptacle or misalign the connector and receptacle, thereby bending the connector or damaging the pins or other electrical contacts inside the connector and receptacle.
What is needed, then, is an electrical interconnect assembly that emits light to substantially illuminate the connector and/or corresponding receptacles to facilitate the interconnection of the connector and receptacle. Also needed is a lighted electrical interconnect assembly that is configured to attach to a preexisting USB connector. The need also exists for a battery powered electrical interconnect assembly capable of emitting light from a terminal end of the housing to substantially illuminate the connector and/or corresponding receptacle whether or not power from the computer is available.

Lighted electrical interconnect assembly


A method and apparatus is provided for assigning resources for an acknowledgement channel, such as the PHICH in LTE systems. Acknowledgement channels for the mobile terminals are assigned to channel groups based on a predetermined assignment criteria. All acknowledgment channels in the same channel group receive acknowledgements on the same downlink resources (e.g., resource elements in OFDM system). A required transmit energy for each channel is determined. If the total required transmit energy for all channels exceeds an available transmit power, the allocated transmit energy for each channel is either scaled down so that the total actual transmit power for all acknowledgment channels is equal to the available transmit power, or some acknowledgment channels are not transmitted.

The present invention relates generally to acknowledgement of uplink transmissions in a mobile communication system and, more particularly, to resource allocation for acknowledgment channels.
A Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) protocol is used for uplink transmission in Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems. When a mobile terminal transmits data on the assigned uplink resources, the base station sends an acknowledgement signal to the mobile terminal to indicate whether the uplink transmission was successful. The acknowledgement signal comprises a single bit that is set to 0 for a positive acknowledgement (ACK) or to 1 for a negative acknowledgement (NACK). The acknowledgement signal is transmitted on a dedicated control channel called the Physical HARQ Indicator Channel (PHICH). Each mobile terminal is assigned to a respective PHICH.
In LTE, the PHICHs for multiple mobile terminals are divided into PHICH groups. In FDD (Frequency Division Duplex) mode, the number of PHICH groups is constant in all subframes and is determined by system bandwidth and a higher layer configuration parameter. In TDD (Time Division Duplex) mode, the number of PHICH groups may vary between subframes. Each PHICH group can have up to eight channels, which all share the same resource elements. The PHICHs within a group are assigned different orthogonal spreading sequences to separate the channels within a PHICH group using code division multiplexing (CDM). A PHICH resource is identified by an index pair (ngroup, mseq), where ngroup is the PHICH group number and mseq is the index of the orthogonal sequence within the group.
For proper operation of the HARQ protocol, the error rate of the PHICH should be sufficiently low. Typically, the target error rate should be in the order of 10−2 for ACKs and 10−3 to 10−4 for NACKs. Because the mobile terminals do not all experience the same channel conditions, the assignment of PHICHs/mobile terminals to PHICH groups should be done in a manner to ensures that the transmit energy allocated to the PHICH for each mobile terminal is sufficient for the reliable detection of the acknowledgement signal by the mobile terminal.

Allocation of acknowledgement channels to channel groups having variable transmit energies


According to one embodiment, an image forming apparatus for forming an image on a recording medium includes a fixing member that fixes a toner image to the recording medium. A heating unit heats the fixing member. A control unit receives a print job, the print job indicating a print mode and at least one job condition. The control unit determines a ready temperature based on the print mode and the at least one job condition. The control unit controls a heating operation of the heating unit based on the determined ready temperature.

Image forming apparatuses having a fixing device heating and fixing a toner image to a recording medium, for instance a sheet have been known. A ready temperature of the fixing device is set constantly and by a margin. Thus, even on a printing job to which a maximum load is applied, the fixing device maintains good fixing performance up to the final print. However, a quantity of heat at which the fixing device requires actually differs depending on job conditions such as a type of toner, the number of printing sheets, and a sheet size. For this reason, when the image forming apparatus carries out a job having a low load applied to the fixing device, the ready temperature may be excessive to impede energy saving. Further, when returning from a sleep state (power saving state) to a ready state, the image forming apparatus takes a long time to do a warmup for raising a heating temperature of the fixing device to a higher ready temperature than necessary.

Image forming apparatus and image forming method


An airbag system includes a bag unit which deploys on an enginehood of a vehicle body by a gas from an inflator. The bag unit is divided into bags back and forth and right and left. The bags include adjacent bags communicating with each other through communication paths. The bags include at least one upright bag to be upright on at least one fender of left and right fenders of the vehicle body. A gas flows from a front bag of the bags located at a front side of the vehicle body through communication paths to a rear bag of the bags behind the front bag and the at least one upright bag on the side of the front bag.

The invention relates to a vehicle body front structure which protects a target for protection such as a pedestrian.
Conventionally there is known a kind of an airbag system which is disclosed in the patent document (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2008-143301). This airbag system includes an airbag body and a seat. The airbag body includes cells into which the airbag body in deployment and inflation is divided along the division line extending in a front-rear direction of a vehicle body. The seat has a shorter width -directional length of the vehicle body than the airbag body, and extends between both the ends in the width direction of the vehicle body. Therefore, the airbag body is shaped as an arch such that the deployment and inflation shape is upwardly concave.
In the patent document, the airbag body is shaped in an arch the deployment and inflation shape of the airbag body is upwardly concave, and this shape restrains or prevents a target for protection coming on the airbag system from falling down onto a road surface while moving in a left-right direction.