An engine includes an improved throttle control to enhance engine performance. The throttle valves within the engine are arranged to rotate about an axis with is generally parallel to a direction in which a distance between intake branch passages increases as the intake branch passages diverge apart. The uniformity of the amount of air delivered to each branch passage is thus improved to produce more complete and consistent combustion within the respective combustion chamber. In addition, the pitch between the throttle valves as arranged on the engine generally matches the pitch between the cylinders of the engine in order to standardize the length and shape of the induction paths from the throttle valves to the respective cylinder. Improved consistency between the cylinders of the amount of air charge delivered to each cylinder results from this arrangement.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to an engine for an watercraft. In particular, the present invention relates to a throttle control device for a marine engine.
2. Description of Related Art
An in-line four-cycle engine often powers an outboard motor today in view of emission concerns in the industry. Such an engine includes a plurality of cylinders formed within a cylinder block. The cylinders are arranged above one another along parallel horizontal axes that lie within a common plane. Pistons reciprocate within the cylinders and drive a crankshaft that rotates about a vertical axis.
A cylinder head is attached to an end of the cylinder block. Intake passages are formed within the cylinder head and communicate with the cylinders. In engines employing multiple intake valves, each intake passage diverges into branch passages that communicate with the respective cylinder. These branch passages often are positioned above one another such that the branches diverge to increase a distance between the branch passages in a direction that is generally parallel to the vertical axis about which the crankshaft rotates.
A plurality of butterfly throttle valves typically regulate the amount of air delivered to each cylinder of the engine. The valve disc of each valve is supported within the valve body by a throttle shaft. The throttle valves commonly are arranged on a side of the engine above one another. The throttle valves are all positioned such that such that throttle shafts lie parallel to each other with the throttle valves rotating about an axis that is perpendicular to the rotational axis of the crankshaft.
A throttle linkage commonly interconnects the throttle shafts of the throttle valves. The linkage generally synchronizes the operation of the throttle valves to stabilize engine rotation. The amount of air delivered to the respective cylinder depends upon the opening angle control by the linkage system.
The throttle linkage commonly includes a series of aligned throttle rods which operate a plurality of throttle levers. One end of the throttle lever is connected to the throttle shaft. The levers are placed parallel to one another, and the series of linkage rods join together the outer ends of the levers. Conventional clips connect the linkage rods to the levers.
Prior induction system designs suffer from several shortcomings. For instance, temperature changes often effect the control of the throttle valves. With increased temperature, prior linkage designs thermally expand which causes the positions of the throttle shafts and the corresponding throttle valve to become unsynchronized. For instance, where a linkage rod connects to a relatively fixed first throttle lever at one end and a movable second throttle lever at the other end, thermal expansion of the linkage rod will move the second lever relative to the first lever. The second lever therefore will no longer lie parallel to the first lever, and consequently the corresponding angle of the second throttle valve, which is operated by the second throttle lever, will differ from the angle of the first throttle valve. Thermal expansion of the linkage rod thus unsynchronizes the operation of the first and second throttle valves.
The arrangement of the linkage rods in series compounds this problem. The increased length of each throttle rod stacks up so that the lever operating the last throttle valve typically moves by an amount corresponding to the combined length increase of each throttle rod within the series. The angles of the first and last throttle valves thus can greatly differ so the operation of the charge formers are no longer synchronized and engine revolution becomes unstabilized. When this occurs at low revolution speed (i.e., under idling conditions) the engine can stall.
In addition, when the throttle valves are slightly opened, more air flows over an upper edge of the throttle valve than over a lower edge of the valve. A greater volume of air thus is directed to the upper branch passage than to the lower branch passage. This uneven air flow through the throttle device also causes a richer fuel/air charge to flow into the lower branch passage and lower intake port than through the upper branch passage and upper intake port. Inconsistent combustion consequently results in the respective combustion chamber, degrading engine performance.
The spacing or pitch between the central axes of each cylinder and the spacing or pitch between the center of the throttle valves also are conventionally different within the engine. The induction paths from the throttle valves to the respective cylinders consequently have differing shapes and lengths from one another. The same amount of air therefore is not delivered to each cylinder. This inconsistency produces a power differential between the cylinders, impairing the engine's performance.


There are provided inorganic/polymer composite particles having good UV-scattering efficiency and improved dispersion stability in organic formulation; and a method for preparing the same, which comprises the following steps of                (1) dispersing hydrophobic-treated inorganic particles in monomer and then adding initiator thereto;        (2) emulsifying the inorganic dispersion of step (1) in presence of surfactant and dispersion stabilizer; and        (3) suspension polymerizing the inorganic/monomer emulsion of step (2), to give inorganic/polymer composite particles.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to UV-scattering inorganic/polymer composite particles and a method for preparing the same.
2. Description of the Related Arts
Recently, we have been worried about destruction of ozone layer and thereby increase of harmful ultraviolet (UV) to seriously affect on ecosystem. Particularly, cosmetic field or coating or painting field are concerned on this increase of harmful UV. That is, because UV penetrated into the skin causes melanoma or erythema, cosmetic field has a task to develop cosmetics for blocking UV.
Conventionally, UV-absorbing materials and UV-scattering materials have been formulated in separate or in combination, in order to block a contact of UV and the skin. UV-absorbing materials are compounds having π-conjugate molecular structure and having UV-blocking efficiency by absorbing UV and then by radiating transformed secondary energy. But, these compounds have defect to limit the amount used due to their toxic characters.
Further, as UV-scattering materials, extreme fine titanium dioxide and zinc oxide have been representatively employed. But, these inorganic UV-scattering particles have high density and high polarity to cause phase separation such as sedimentation and coagulation in organic mixture. Particularly, in UV-blocking cosmetics, this phase separation may depreciate UV-blocking efficiency and rapidly down stability of formulation. Because 15˜30 nm of inorganic particles have high surface polarity and density, they cannot be dispersed stably in hydrophobic monomer phase of suspension polymerization. Additionally, when large quantity of inorganic particles is applied on the skin, it causes whitening phenomenon wherein the skin seems white or blue. This whitening phenomenon may depreciate the value of cosmetic goods to cause people to shun use of UV-blocking cosmetics. And, there is defect such as sticky feeling by using nano-sized inorganic particles.
Therefore, in order to solve the above problems caused by inorganic scattering materials, various efforts have been made. For examples, in order to improve stability in formulation, inorganic particles may be coated with organic materials or surfactant and formulation property may be controlled. Concretely, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,123,927 and 5,980,871 disclosed a method for improving UV-scattering efficiency and formulation stability by controlling component ratio and particle size. But, though initial dispersion is improved, it is impossible to overcome low compatibility with other components in formulation and thereby impossible to improve long-term stability and temperature stability. Korean Patent No. 275022 expected synergistic effect by encapsulating titanium dioxide and transformed micro-hollow sphere with polymer micro-sphere. But, it cannot solve the defects caused by titanium dioxide.
Under this circumstance, in order to solve said problems, the present inventors have conducted extensive studies on novel material having intrinsic UV-scattering efficiency and without said defects caused by inorganic particles. As a result thereof, we found that inorganic/polymer composite particles obtained by suspension polymerization of monomer and inorganic particles exhibit improved UV-scattering efficiency and good dispersion stability. In the present method, inorganic particles are employed after surface treatment with organic material in order to increase dispersivity in monomer.


A first concave-convex portion of a first transmission member is engaged with an intermediate concave-convex portion of an intermediate transmission member with a circumferential gap being therebetween. A second concave-convex portion of a second transmission member is engaged with the intermediate concave-convex portion with a circumferential gap being therebetween. A first elastic member and a second elastic member are engaged with a first engagement portion and a second engagement portion of the intermediate transmission member such that separation between the intermediate transmission member and the first elastic member and the second elastic member can be prevented.

FIGS. 18 and 19 show an example of a known electric power steering device described in Patent Document 1.
A front end portion of a steering shaft 2 to which a steering wheel 1 is attached at a rear end portion is rotatably supported in a housing 3, and a worm wheel 4 is fixed to a portion configured to rotate by the steering shaft 2. Worm teeth 5 configured to mesh with the worm wheel 4 are provided on an axially intermediate portion of a worm shaft 6, and both axial end portions of a worm 8 configured to rotate by an electric motor 7 are rotatably supported in the housing 3 by a pair of rolling bearings 9a, 9b such as a deep groove type ball bearing. A pressing piece 10 is externally fitted to a part of a tip portion of the worm shaft 6, which protrudes more than the rolling bearing 9a. An elastic member such as a coil spring 11 is provided between the pressing piece 10 and the housing 3. The worm teeth 5 provided on the worm shaft 6 is pressed toward the worm wheel 4 by the coil spring 11 via the pressing piece 10. By this configuration, backlash between the worm teeth 5 and the worm wheel 4 is suppressed to reduce generation of gear striking noise.
According to the conventional structure as described above, it is possible to suppress the generation of the gear striking noise at the meshing portion of the worm teeth 5 and the worm wheel 4. However, there is room for improvement in the aspect of suppressing an abnormal noise, which is to be generated at a coupling portion between a tip portion of an output shaft 12 of the electric motor 7 and a base end portion of the worm shaft 6. This is described as follows.
According to the structure shown in FIG. 19, in order to couple the tip portion of the output shaft 12 of the electric motor 7 and the base end portion of the worm shaft 6 such that torque can be transmitted, the base end portion of the worm shaft 6 is formed with a spline hole 13 opening to a base end surface of the worm shaft 6. The tip portion of the output shaft 12 is formed with a spline shaft portion 14. The spline shaft portion 14 and the spline hole 13 are spline-engaged. Thereby, the output shaft 12 and the worm shaft 6 are coupled such that the torque can be transmitted.
If the spline shaft portion 14 and the spline hole 13 are spline-engaged without a circumferential gap (without the backlash), an abnormal noise is not generated at the coupling portion (the spline engagement portion) between the tip portion of the output shaft 12 and the base end portion of the worm shaft 6. However, in the actual situation, the backlash exists at the spline engagement portion. Particularly, when the backlash between the worm teeth 5 and the worm wheel 4 is suppressed by the structure as shown in FIG. 19, it is not possible to completely remove the backlash of the spline engagement portion because it is necessary to allow swingable displacement of the worm shaft 6, and there is room for improvement.
Patent Document 2 discloses a structure where the output shaft of the electric motor and the worm shaft are coupled via a metallic power transmission member having a cylinder shape such that the worm shaft can be smoothly swingably displaced. In the structure disclosed in Patent Document 2, since the worm shaft is swingably displaced, the backlash exists at spline engagement portions between spline shaft portions (male spline) provided at both end portions of the power transmission member and spline holes (female spline) provided at respective end portions of the worm shaft and the output shaft of the electric motor, respectively. Therefore, there is room for improvement in suppressing generation of the abnormal noise when the rotational direction of the rotary shaft is reversed.

Torque transmission joint and electric power steering device


A vocoder control technique provides robust vocoder control allowing a radio access network (RAN) to reliably control remote vocoding functions in support of mobile station signaling. In some wireless communication network implementations, vocoding functions are remote from the RAN, such as where a base station controller interconnects with a media gateway via a packet core network, with the media gateway providing vocoding services for voice data incoming from the PSTN. When the RAN has IS-95/IS-2000 signaling messages for the mobile station, it inserts a specialized rate control message into one or more voice frames passing from the RAN to the media gateway. The message defines the desired rate constraint and the number voice frames to be constrained. In response, the media gateway applies the desired rate constraint to the specified number of frames, allowing the RAN to insert signaling messages into the rate constrained frames using dim-and-burst signaling techniques.

The range of services offered by wireless communication networks continues its evolution from essentially voice-only service to a rich combination of data services in addition to voice service. One consequence of this evolution is that large portions of the wireless communication network are increasingly designed with an emphasis on supporting the newer, higher bandwidth data services. Wireless Internet access in support of web browsing and streaming media services are examples of these higher bandwidth data services.
In keeping with the nature of these newer data services, the wireless communication network is increasingly packet oriented. For example, a wireless communication network may be, at its core, an assemblage of various network entities interconnected through a packet-based network. While this arrangement suits the packet data flowing between the communication network and the Internet or other packet data networks, it sometimes poses special challenges for legacy services, such as voice.
For example, to reduce the amount of data carried internally by the communication network, voice encoding and decoding (vocoding) functions may be transferred from the radio access network (RAN) to a gateway device, such as a media gateway, that connects the RAN to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). Voice data received from the PSTN at the gateway device for mobile stations supported by the RAN is compressed and formatted into voice frames, which are then transferred to the RAN in packetized form via some type of packet network interconnecting the RAN and the gateway device.
Locating vocoding functions remote from the RAN imposes special challenges when the RAN needs to assert vocoding control in support of signaling operations. For example, one approach to transferring signaling information to a mobile station is referred to as dim-and-burst, and involves applying greater compression to the voice data so that a voice frame has "room" for one or more signaling bits. Thus, a number of rate-constrained voice frames may be used to transmit a signaling message from the RAN to the mobile station, but only if the RAN has some mechanism for generating or at least requesting the generation of such rate-constrained frames.
Controlling the vocoder in support of dim-and-burst signaling is straightforward when the RAN performs vocoding, but is more complicated when a remote network entity performs the vocoding. When vocoding is remote from the RAN, the network, must have a reliable mechanism for remote vocoder control.

Robust vocoder rate control in a packet network


A method for failure analysis of small contacts in integrated circuits is provided. A number of opposing electrical contacts is configured to contact a sample in an offset pattern such that any one electrical contact may contact more than one conductor in the sample and any opposing electrical contact is offset-positioned to contact no more than one of the conductors contacted by the one electrical contact.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to semiconductor technology, and more specifically to semiconductor research and development.
2. Background Art
At the present time, electronic products are used in almost every aspect of life, and the heart of these electronic products is the integrated circuit. Integrated circuits are used in a wide variety of products, such as televisions, telephones, and appliances.
Integrated circuits are made in and on silicon wafers by extremely complex systems that require the coordination of hundreds or even thousands of precisely controlled processes to produce a finished semiconductor wafer. Each finished semiconductor wafer has hundreds to tens of thousands of integrated circuits, each worth hundreds or thousands of dollars.
The ideal would be to have every one of the integrated circuits on a wafer functional and within specifications, but because of the sheer numbers of processes and minute variations in the processes, this rarely occurs. "Yield" is the measure of how many "good" integrated circuits there are on a wafer divided by the maximum number of possible good integrated circuits on the wafer. A 100% yield is extremely difficult to obtain because minor variations, due to such factors as timing, temperature, and materials, substantially affect a process. Further, one process often affects a number of other processes, often in unpredictable ways.
In a manufacturing environment, the primary purpose of experimentation is to increase the yield. Experiments are performed in-line and at the end of the production line with both production wafers and experimental wafers. However, yield enhancement methodologies in the manufacturing environment produce an abundance of very detailed data for a large number of wafers in processes subject only to minor variations. Major variations in the processes are not possible because of the time and cost of using production equipment and production wafers. Setup times for equipment and processing time can range from weeks to months, and processed wafers can each contain hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of integrated circuits.
The learning cycle for the improvement of systems and processes requires coming up with an idea, formulating a test(s) of the idea, testing the idea to obtain data, studying the data to determine the correctness of the idea, and developing new ideas based on the correctness of the first idea. The faster the correctness of ideas can be determined, the faster new ideas can be developed. Unfortunately, the manufacturing environment provides a slow learning cycle because of manufacturing time and cost.
Recently, the great increase in the complexity of integrated circuit manufacturing processes and the decrease in time between new product conception and market introduction have both created the need for speeding up the learning cycle.
This has been accomplished in part by the unique development of the integrated circuit research and development environment. In this environment, the learning cycle has been greatly speeded up and innovative techniques have been developed that have been extrapolated to high volume manufacturing facilities.
To speed up the learning cycle, processes are speeded up and major variations are made to many processes. To reduce costs, only a few wafers are actually processed for each cycle. This research and development environment has resulted in the generation of tremendous amounts of data and analysis for all the different processes and variations. This, in turn, has required a large number of engineers to do the analysis. With more data, the answer always has been to hire more engineers.
However, this is not an acceptable solution for major problems. For example, as the dimensions of individual features of a semiconductor wafer shrink with each new technology generation, it becomes ever more difficult to perform accurate failure analysis tests on the semiconductor devices. This is particularly true of the ever-smaller individual features, such as the distinct conductors and vias, in these devices. It is essential that the tests be performed accurately, easily, and quickly, since semiconductor wafers can each be worth thousands of dollars or more. Production corrections must consequently be made quickly and reliably, as soon as product problems or anomalies are detected.
The first step in resolving such issues is accurately diagnosing the source of the problem. This requires precision testing equipment that can be easily yet accurately and dependably operated. Integrated circuits are typically tested by contacting conductive pads on the semiconductor wafer with a probe unit that is connected to a probe card. The probe card contains the circuitry necessary to perform electrical diagnosis and characterization of the integrated circuits. A traditional probe unit includes "pogo" pins or needles suspended from the body of the probe unit for contacting the electrical pads of the integrated circuits of the wafer. The pins or needles are conductive, and thus, when in proper contact with the pads, provide electrical communication between an integrated circuit being tested and the diagnostic tester circuitry on the probe card.
When such testing reveals a defective chip or die on the wafer, it is sometimes necessary to examine individual features, such as individual metallic conductors or vias, within that die. This often involves removing part of the die structure to expose the interior elements that need to be tested. Sometimes a thin section of the die will be removed for testing. In all such cases, electrical connections must be made to the exposed structures. This can be far more difficult than the initial testing of the intact die, since the internal integrated circuit structures are much, much smaller. Thus, with ever smaller and smaller circuit structures and dimensions, known pad and probe contacts are increasingly proving to be inadequate.
More particularly, the relatively large distance between the contact elements on such pad and probe contacts makes it harder and harder to make proper, reliable contact with very small test points that are arranged in a very tight space. Too often, the test contact elements may contact more than one metallic element on the structure being tested.
A need therefore remains for tester contact structures that can assure accurate and proper connections to very small integrated circuit device structures under test.
Solutions to these problems have been long sought but prior developments have not taught or suggested any solutions and, thus, solutions to these problems have long eluded those skilled in the art.

Test structure and method for failure analysis of small contacts in integrated circuit technology development


A rearview mirror (01) for a vehicle with a partly transparent reflective element (03) for observing the traffic behind has at least one signaling mechanism with light-emitting lighting device (05, 07) provided on the rear side of the reflective element (03). The light of the signaling mechanism is radiated at a specific angle of radiation in a predominant direction (13, 14), so that the lighting strength on the front side of the reflective element (03) depends on the viewing angle relative to the predominant direction (13, 14). An optical convergent lens (11), which collects the light signals of the lighting device (05, 07) and deflects them in the direction of the predominant direction (13, 14), is arranged between the lighting device (05, 07) and the reflective element (03).

Generic rearview mirrors on the one hand serve to observe the traffic behind and on the other hand as signaling mechanism to give the driver and/or other passengers and/or other drivers warning signals or reference signals. There the signaling occurs by sending out light signals, whereby light-emitting lighting means are arranged behind the reflective element serving to show the traffic behind.
So that the light signals of the signaling mechanism can be viewed by the observer on the front side of the reflective element, the reflective element is designed partly transparent. Such partly transparent reflective elements are also designated as so-called Venetian mirrors.
A generic rearview mirror is described for example in U.S. Pat. No. 6,045,243. In this rearview mirror a polarizing film is arranged between the lighting means and the reflective element, with which the light radiated by the lighting means can be deflected in a predominant direction. The result of this is that when the front side of the reflective element is viewed the illumination strength depends on the viewing angle relative to the predominant direction when the signaling mechanism is switched on. If the driver receives a warning for example, a predominant direction is selected, in which the signaling mechanism can be viewed clearly from the driving position alone. The warning signal cannot be viewed from the viewing direction of the traffic behind or to the side, since the light emitted by the lighting means is shaded in this direction by the polarizing film.
The disadvantage of the mirror described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,045,243 is that the polarizing film weakens the light overall, so that a relatively high density of light is required to ensure adequate illumination strength on the front side of the reflective element. This high light output in turn requires a relatively high electric power supply and causes high heat losses.


Two or more electronic devices are connected via a bus system building a cluster or chain of devices. A device can be selected using a control device, wherein an user interface for the selected device is generated based on description data which are stored in the selected device and are transferred to the control device. A single user interface is shown on a display of the control device which allows to operate at least two devices simultaneously. The user interface of a first device is displayed as main user interface and the user interface of a second device is rendered within the main interface as reduced user interface which includes only operation elements necessary for operation of the second device in combination with the first device.

For controlling several AV devices within a network of home entertainment products the so-called HAVi (Home Audio Video Interoperability) standard has been developed. This standard specifies the control of television sets, video recorders, set top boxes and other devices, especially for the control of the exchange of digital audio and video streams. The devices are connected via the IEEE 1394 bus (i.LINK® or Fire-Wire®), which has enough capacity to simultaneously carry multiple digital audio and video streams.
Each device added to the HAVi network automatically installs its own application and interface software and is automatically registered by the system so that other devices know what it is capable of. So-called Application Programming Interfaces of the most common AV functions have been standardized. Furthermore, functions on a device within the HAVi networking system may be controlled from another device within the system.
HAVi defines two different ways of using User-Interfaces (UIs). Both solutions are working in principle in the same way: one device within the network (target) provide UI-elements or a kind of a complete UI to a display device (controller). The controller renders the UI-elements or executes the complete UI, respectively. The first mode is called Data Driven Interaction (DDI), the second one UI by havlets.
For a DDI-UI a part of a network is shown in FIG. 1. A display device 1 and a controlled device 3 are connected via an IEEE 1394 bus 5. The target device in the IEEE1394 network comprises a Device Control Module (DCM) 4, which can provide DDI-elements to the network for creating a UI. It is also able to control the device, natively, by commands.
Because a DCM is registered within the HAVi network, a DDI controller 2 can "subscribe" to the DCM 4. This is the start of an interaction between the DDI controller 2 and the DCM 4 to transmit the DDI-elements to the controller, display them to the user and afterwards to translate the user's action on these DDI-elements to native commands in the DCM.

Method for the data exchange between network devices


When a middle voltage within a withstanding voltage of a transistor from a first voltage VL as a low voltage of a source voltage and a second voltage VH as a high voltage of the source voltage is represented by VM and a third voltage within the withstanding voltage of a transistor from the second voltage VH or the first voltage VL is represented by VS or VD, a driving circuit includes: a first transistor whose source electrode is connected to a node of the middle voltage VM; a second transistor whose source electrode is connected to the drain electrode of the first transistor and whose drain electrode is connected to an output terminal; and a controller applying a signal having an amplitude of a difference between the voltages VL and VH to the gate electrode of the first transistor and applying a signal having an amplitude of a difference between the voltages VS and VH or between the voltages VL and VD to the gate electrode of the second transistor.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a driving circuit, a driving method, a solid-state imaging device, and an electronic apparatus.
2. Related Art
In a driving circuit such as an output buffer circuit formed of CMOS, when a voltage amplitude greater than a withstanding voltage ΔVlim of a transistor is necessary, a voltage greater than the withstanding voltage is applied to a gate oxide film of the transistor and thus the gate oxide film is broken down, thereby reducing the reliability.
For example, as shown in FIG. 18, in an output buffer circuit having a PMOS transistor Mp101 and an NMOS transistor Mn101 connected in series between a node of a low voltage (such as a ground voltage) VL and a node of a high voltage VH, it is considered that a drive for output is made with a voltage amplitude VL→VH (VH−VL>ΔVlim) greater than the withstanding voltage ΔVlim. For the purpose of simplicity, inversion logics are used in the output buffer circuit according to Related Example 1 shown in FIG. 18. Input and output waveforms are shown in FIG. 19 and device sections at IN=VH and IN=VL are shown in FIGS. 20A and 20B, respectively.
When a drive for an output OUT is made with the low voltage VL, the high voltage VH is applied to the gate electrode of the NMOS transistor Mn101 and the low voltage VL is applied to the drain, the source, and the channel of the transistor Mn101. Accordingly, a voltage VH−VL greater than the withstanding voltage ΔVlim is applied to the gate oxide film, thereby causing a breakdown of the gate oxide film. Since a voltage greater than the withstanding voltage ΔVlim is applied across the gate and drain electrodes of the PMOS transistor Mp101, the breakdown of the gate oxide film thereof is caused.
Similarly, when a drive for the output OUT is made with the high voltage VH, a voltage greater than the withstanding voltage is applied to the gate oxide film of the PMOS transistor Mp101 or across the gate and drain electrodes of the NMOS transistor Mn101, thereby causing the breakdown of the gate oxide film.
In the circuit configuration of the output buffer circuit according to Related Example 1, a high-voltage process such as a MOS device having a thick gate oxide film need be applied to at least the transistors Mp101 and Mn101 of the output terminal. However, the high-voltage process generally causes a problem with an increase in manufacturing cost or an increase in mounting area.
On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 21, an output buffer circuit is known which can make a drive with a voltage amplitude VL→VH greater than the withstanding voltage without using the high-voltage process by connecting a PMOS transistor Mp102 and an NMOS transistor Mn102 having bias voltages VS and VD applied to the gate electrodes thereof in series between the driving transistors Mp101 and Mn101 on the output terminal side of the output buffer circuit (for example, see JP-A-H10-294662). The input and output waveforms of the output buffer circuit according to Related Example 2 are shown in FIG. 22 and device sections at IN=VH and IN=VL are shown in FIGS. 23A and 23B, respectively.
Here, the bias voltage VD is a voltage within the withstanding voltage from the low voltage VL and the bias voltage VS is a voltage within the withstanding voltage from the high voltage VH. In addition, regarding the amplitude of the gate input of the driving transistors Mp101 and Mn101, a drive with VL→VD is made in the NMOS transistor Mn101 and a drive with VS→VH is made in the PMOS transistor Mp101, via the level shifters 101 and 102, respectively. Here, the bias transistors Mp102 and Mn102 to which the bias voltages VS and VD are applied have a function of preventing an output voltage from being directly applied to the drain electrodes of the driving transistors Mp101 and Mn101 at the time of turning off the driving transistors to allow the gate-drain voltage to be greater than the withstanding voltage.
When the input IN is at a high potential, the bias voltage VS is applied to the gate electrode of the PMOS driving transistor Mp101. Accordingly, the high voltage VH is output as the output voltage OUT. At this time, the potential of the drain electrode of the NMOS driving transistor Mn101 is VD−Vthn which is smaller by a voltage of about a threshold value Vthn than the bias voltage VD. Accordingly, VH−VD (≦ΔVlim) is applied to the gate oxide film of the bias transistor Mn102 in maximum and (VD−Vthn)−VL (≦ΔVlim) is applied to the gate oxide film of the PMOS driving transistor Mn101 in maximum, which are smaller than the withstanding voltage.
The same is true when the input IN is at the low potential. That is, since the bias voltage VD is applied to the gate electrode of the NMOS driving transistor Mn101, the low voltage VL is output as the output voltage OUT. At this time, the drain potential of the PMOS driving transistor Mp101 is VS−Vthp which is greater by a voltage of about the threshold voltage Vthp than the bias voltage VS. Accordingly, VS−VL (≦ΔVlim) is applied to the gate oxide film of the bias transistor Mp102 in maximum and VH−(VS−Vthp) (≦ΔVlim) is applied to the gate oxide film of the NMOS driving transistor Mn101 in maximum, which are smaller than the withstanding voltage.

Driving circuit, driving method, solid imaging device, and electronic apparatus


A voice control device and a corresponding voice control method are provided. The voice control device includes a sound receiver, a sound converter, a voice identifier, and a central processing unit (CPU). The sound receiver receives a first sound signal. The sound converter converts the first sound signal from analog signal to digital signal. The voice identifier identifies a first voice signal from the first sound signal, performs a first comparison on the first voice signal and a second voice signal, and generates a wake-up signal according to the first comparison. When receiving the wake-up signal, the CPU enters a working state from a sleeping state, performs a second comparison on the first voice signal and the second voice signal, and takes over the voice input from the sound receiver and the sound converter according to the second comparison.

1. Technical Field
The invention relates to a voice control device and a voice control method. Particularly, the invention relates to a method of waking up a voice control device by using a predetermined phrase.
2. Related Art
Presently, more and more electronic devices start to use voice control, and the voice control will become a commonly used user interface of most of the electronic devices.
However, regarding a mobile electronic device powered by batteries, energy consumption of a voice engine is rather high. To keep the voice engine of the system being always in a running state may quickly consume electric energy of the system. Therefore, the voice engine of the present mobile electronic device is generally triggered by using a button or a similar mechanism.
As the voice control is started by pressing a button, it is inconvenient for the user to use. If the voice engine is kept to be activated, it may cause unnecessary energy consumption.

Voice control device and voice control method


The present invention provides a method of forming a metal seed layer 100. The method includes physical vapor deposition of seed metal 200 within an opening 140 located in a dielectric layer 135 of a substrate 110. The method also includes a RF plasma etch of the seed metal 200 deposited in the opening 140 simultaneously with conducting the physical vapor deposition of the seed metal 200.

The push toward smaller and faster semiconductor devices has resulted in a shift toward the use of copper for making electrical interconnections in integrated circuits. For example, copper offers a number of benefits over aluminum: higher electrical conductivity, good resistance to electro-migration, and reduced cross talk and propagation delays at higher interconnect densities. The fabrication of copper interconnects are not without difficulties, however.
For instance, when copper is etched, it tends to be redeposited elsewhere on the semiconductor device, or in the deposition chamber. Copper atoms also readily diffuse into silicon-containing dielectric layers. The contamination by copper in unwanted locations can degrade or destroy the performance of microelectronic devices in the integrated circuit.
One way to reduce the problems with copper etching and diffusion is to deposit an underlying barrier layer to block the migration of copper atoms into other components of the semiconductor. To facilitate the adhesion of copper to the diffusion barrier, a seed layer of copper is deposited over the diffusion barrier, followed by the deposition of a second thicker copper-conducting layer over the copper seed layer.
The requirement for a diffusion barrier layer when using copper-containing interconnects introduces another problem. Because the barrier layer occupies a portion of the space in the interconnect, the thickness of the copper seed layer deposited over the barrier layer in the interconnect must be reduced. Moreover, as the dimensions of interconnects shrink with each decrease in node size, so too does the thickness of the copper seed layer.
Depositing a thin metal seed layer is problematic, however. For instance, conventional physical vapor deposition (PVD) processing tools tend to deposit the copper seed layer too rapidly making it difficult to control the layer's thickness. Conventional PVD processes also do not provide a uniform and conformal coating of the copper seed layer inside the interconnect. Typically, the sidewalls of the interconnect have a smaller thickness of the copper seed than the bottom of the interconnect. Additionally, conventional PVD processes can produce an overhang of copper around the top edge of the interconnect. An overhang can exacerbate the inadequate deposition of copper seed on the sidewalls and in some cases pinch off the opening of the interconnect, resulting in a void formation in the interconnect.
Conventional PVD processes also tend to deposit more copper seed on central portions of a wafer substrate than at the edge of the wafer. Consequently the effects of poor sidewall coverage and overhangs will vary for integrated circuits fabricated on different locations of a wafer. This, in turn, can cause undesirable variations in the performance of the integrated circuits built on different areas of the wafer.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is a method and system for manufacturing interconnects having uniformly conformal, thin, and continuous interconnect metal seed layers, while avoiding the above-discussed disadvantages associated with conventional methods and systems for forming such layers.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Process and integration scheme for a high sidewall coverage ultra-thin metal seed layer


A high strength and high toughness aluminum alloy is produced by crystallization of one of two aluminum alloy blanks: one having a metallographic structure with a volume fraction Vf of a mixed-phase texture consisting of an amorphous phase and an aluminum crystalline phase being equal to or more than 50% (Vf.gtoreq.50%), and the other having a metallographic structure with a volume fraction Vf of an amorphous single-phase texture being equal to or more than 50% (Vf.gtoreq.50%). The aluminum alloy is represented by a chemical formula: EQU Al.sub.(a) X.sub.(b) Z.sub.(c) Si.sub.(d). wherein X is at least one element selected from the group consisting of Mn, Fe, Co and Ni; Z is at least one element selected from the group consisting of Zr and Ti; and each of (a), (b), (c) and (d) is defined within the following range:. 84 atomic %.ltoreq.(a).ltoreq.94 atomic %, PA1 4 atomic %.ltoreq.(b).ltoreq.atomic %, PA1 0.6 atomic %.ltoreq.(c).ltoreq.4 atomic %, and PA1 0.5 atomic %.ltoreq.(d).ltoreq.(b)/3.. Si is present in the form of at least one of a solute atom of an aluminum solid solution and a component element of an intermetallic compound.

1. FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a high strength and high toughness aluminum alloy, and particularly, to an improvement of aluminum alloy produced by crystallization of one of two aluminum alloy blanks: one having a metallographic structure with a volume fraction Vf of a mixed-phase texture consisting of an amorphous phase and an aluminum crystalline phase being equal to or more than 50% (Vf.gtoreq.50%), and the other having a metallographic structure with a volume fraction Vf of an amorphous single-phase texture being equal to or more than 50% (Vf.gtoreq.50%).
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
There are such conventionally known aluminum alloys such as Al-Fe-Zr based alloys (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No.248860/85 and U.S. Pat. No.4,473,317).
However, the prior art aluminum alloys have a problem that they have a relatively high strength, on the one hand, and have an extremely low toughness, on the other hand, because an intermetallic compound Al.sub.2 Fe is produced during the crystallization of the aluminum alloy blank.

High strength and high toughness aluminum alloy


An object of the present invention is to provide an antibody against VEGF that inhibits binding of a vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) to neuropilin-1 (NRP1). The present invention provides an antibody against VEGF that inhibits binding of VEGF to NRP1.

Formation of new blood vessels (angiogenesis) is an essential process for maintaining life. On the other hand, pathological angiogenesis is known to be associated with many diseases.
As factors involved in angiogenesis, vascular endothelial growth factors (VEGF) are known (Non Patent Literature 1: Ferrara N, et al, Endocr Rev., 1997, 18 (1): 4-25). VEGFs are known to involve cell division and migration, induction of differentiation, vascular hyperpermeability, activation of monocytes and macrophages, and the like through binding to their receptors to cause intracellular signal transduction.
As VEGF receptors, 3 types of VEGF receptors including vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-1 (VEGFR1 (another name: Flt-1)), vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-2 (VEGFR2 (another name: KDR)), and neuropilin-1 (NRP1) have been reported.
NRP1 is a type I transmembrane glycoprotein of about 130 kDa, has been initially reported as an axon-guidance mediator, and also has been reported to play an important role in vasculogenesis (Non Patent Literature 2: Nature, 436: 193-200, 2005). Moreover, studies using knockout mice have reported that the loss of NRP1 functions results in defective blood vessel remodeling and branching (Non Patent Literature 3: Development, 135, 2479-88, 2008). Furthermore, it has been reported that in epithelial cells, NRP1 has a function to enhance signals generated by binding of VEGF to VEGFR2 to accelerate cell migration and vasculogenesis (Non Patent Literature 4: Cell, 92, 735-745, 1998).
VEGFs form a VEGF family consisting of VEGF-A, VEGF-B, VEGF-C, VEGF-D, VEGF-E, PIGF-1, and PIGF-2. Human VEGF-A is known to have subtypes such as VEGF121, VEGF145, VEGF165, VEGF183, VEGF189, and VEGF206, and VEGF165 is the most prevalent. Moreover, VEGF165 is known to bind to all of VEGFR1, VEGFR2 and NRP1.
In the meantime, as a subtype of VEGF165, VEGF165b having 6 residues on the C-terminus of VEGF165 translated not from exon 8a, but from exon 8b has been reported. Unlike VEGF165, VEGF165b has been reported to have functions opposite to those of VEGFs, such as a function of suppressing angiogenesis and a function of suppressing the growth of kidney cancer. It is considered that VEGF165b does not form a conformation for binding to NRP1 because VEGF165b has serine (Ser) substituted from the 160th cysteine (Cys) in VEGF165, and thus no angiogenesis takes place (Non Patent Literature 5: Nature Reviews Cancer, 8, 880-887, 2008).
Furthermore, VEGF is known to induce not only normal angiogenesis, but also pathological angiogenesis and vascular hyperpermeability. As diseases associated with pathological angiogenesis, malignant transformation of tumors, tumor metastasis, wet-type age-related macular degeneration and the like are known. As diseases associated with abnormal vascular hyperpermeability, retinal vein occlusion, diabetic macular edema, and the like are known. Antibodies neutralizing VEGF activity are used for treatment of these diseases.
Anti-VEGF neutralizing antibodies suppress the growth of various human tumor cell lines in nude mice, and inhibit intraocular neovasculogenesis in an ischemic retinal disorder model (Patent Literature 1: JP Laid-Open Publication No. 2011-525359, Patent Literature 2: JP Laid-Open Publication No. 2007-526756). As an anti-VEGF antibody, bevacizumab (bevacizumab, Avastin®) is known, and the use of the same in combination with a chemotherapy regimen for treating metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC) and non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has been approved by FDA.
Moreover, as a Fab (antigen-binding fragment) antibody of bevacizumab, Ranibizumab (Ranibizumab Lucentis®) has been developed. Ranibizumab was approved by FDA in 2006 as an age-related macular degeneration therapeutic drug.
Bevacizumab and its Fab antibody are considered to exert its efficacy with a mechanism by which the binding thereof to VEGF inhibits binding of VEGF to VEGFR1 and of VEGF to VEGFR2, thereby inhibiting angiogenesis and lowering the supply of nutrients to rapidly growing cancer cells. However, it is known that bevacizumab does not inhibit binding of VEGF to NRP1.
In the meantime, among antibodies against NRP1, monoclonal antibodies that inhibit binding of VEGF to NRP1 have been reported (Patent Literature 3: JP Laid-Open Publication No. 2010-530359). These antibodies bind to NRP1 to inhibit binding of VEGF to NRP1, and thus to suppress VEGF functions.
It has been reported that VEGF has effects involving angiogenesis and vascular permeability, while affecting cancer stem cells. It has been reported that in skin squamous cell carcinoma, VEGF involves the regulation of the sternness of cancer stem cells through its binding to NRP1 (Non Patent Literature 5: Nature, 478, 399-403, 2011).
As described above, bevacizumab is an antibody that inhibits binding of VEGF to VEGFR1 and of VEGF to VEGFR2, and is unable to inhibit binding of VEGF to NRP1. Also, no antibody among antibodies against VEGF has been reported to inhibit binding of VEGF to NRP1.

Antibody inhibiting binding of VEGF to NRP1


Methods of assuring that a representative formation and/or fluid sample of a subterranean reservoir is obtained are provided. One method of validating a reservoir fluid sample obtained from a wellbore includes the steps of acquiring a reservoir fluid sample in the wellbore; measuring a property of the fluid sample downhole with a technique to obtain a measured downhole fluid property; replicating the measuring technique used to obtain the measured downhole fluid property to obtain at a remote location from the wellbore with a technique to obtain at least one measured remote location fluid property; validating the fluid sample through comparison of the measured downhole fluid property and the at least one measured remote location fluid property.

The term flow assurance is used to describe a broad array of issues related to the reliability and operability of oil and gas production systems. The flow assurance workflow consists of two streams, a design stream and a surveillance stream. The design stream starts in the exploration and appraisal phase and ends with the commissioning of the system. The surveillance stream starts with first production and continues through the producing life of the field. The surveillance stream is a feedback loop used to monitor and optimize the production system performance.
Samples of fluid and the formation from hydrocarbon reservoirs are essential to understand the fluids to be produced. Many decisions for field development, such as production strategies and design of fluid handling facilities are based on the properties of the samples from exploratory wells. It is important to have information of the original fluids in the reservoir and the reservoir formation. Fluid samples are also acquired at later stages in the life of the reservoir to evaluate the condition of the reservoir at a certain point of time or after some production activities, however, the point of comparison is always the original reservoir properties. Thus, it is important to acquire quality, representative reservoir samples and to manage this data.


Subject matter includes exemplary methods of reversible diffusion-based compression and an exemplary compression engine. In one implementation, a reversible diffusion function is applied to decrease high spatial frequency pixel values in an image or a prediction error image residue and to smooth variances between adjacent pixel values. An exemplary reversible diffusion function can increase data compression without loss of high frequency information yet operate with online encoders and decoders that lack significant processing power. An exemplary method transforms the data to make the data more amenable to compression schemes that utilize entropy transforms as an intermediate processing step, for example, prior to Huffman coding.

An ideal transmission of an image over a digital network consists of the image being reduced to a minimum amount of information and faithfully reproduced at the receiving end without loss of detail. Although the image data can be compressed for transmission efficiency, the amount of compression is limited by practical concerns and by a theoretical limit. Source coding theory sets the limit for lossless data compression at the entropy rate, "S." It is not possible to compress data—without data loss—using a compression rate that exceeds S. If some distortion can be tolerated, however, then "lossy" data compression using a rate-distortion function can provide a data compression rate that exceeds S, but the decompressed data is not exactly the same as the original data. In the case of an image, the tradeoff between a desirable data compression rate and the introduction of some distortion in the transmitted image may be acceptable as the human brain can compensate for many types of visual artifacts introduced into images by compression techniques.
The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) has adopted various algorithms and standards for single image and video sequence digital data compression. MPEG compression is versatile because it is a composite or toolkit of compression techniques that work together to compress different aspects of an image or a video sequence. For example, an entropy transform known as discrete cosine transformation (DCT) performs transform coding: a spatial compression on each 8×8 pixel matrix composing an image; motion compensation performs a temporal compression on macroblocks consisting of four 8×8 pixel matrices; entropy coding performs statistical compression of coefficients resulting from the DCT; and quantization performs subjective compression of the DCT coefficients.
Consecutive frames of video are often very similar and hence contain approximately the same information, albeit, with slight changes that often result from motion being portrayed in the video sequence. As the number of frames or samples used to portray motion increases per unit time, the amount of change between frames decreases. Motion compensation attempts to find matched or unchanged areas common between frames. These "matches" are encoded via translation vectors. Since their composition is known, matched areas between a first frame and a second frame being predicted from the first frame are allocated a pointer, the translation vector, and removed from further prediction calculations. Once the matches have been removed, the frame (that the encoder is attempting to predict and/or encode) is often left with little or no information. This is called the residual frame. In macroblocks where prediction is being applied, the DCT is performed on the prediction errors instead of on the image itself.
Most video compression techniques rely heavily on motion compensation and residual encoding of the residual frame. Often, the aforementioned matches are not exact and there is "leftover" information in the predicted frame (the one that the encoder is encoding) that still needs to be encoded. A typical residual frame looks "almost blank" with pockets of energy that represents the "errors" in the matches (prediction error). During transform coding, these errors are operated on by the DCT, converting the errors into the frequency domain. The frequency information is then compressed via entropy coding called variable length coding or Huffman encoding. Huffman codes are widely used to convert a string of data to tokens, each having a length that is inversely proportional to the frequency-of-use of the encoded character. For example, to transmit Huffman-encoded English language text, a token for the letter "e" is allotted very few bits, because "e" is the most common character in the alphabet. In MPEG compression, the Huffman type entropy coding usually includes several variable length code tables available to a decoder.
Before Huffman entropy coding, prediction errors are first passed through the DCT transform coding stage in order to reduce the number of non-zero terms. Even though energy pockets (the visual information that did not exactly match during prediction between frames) are found throughout the residual frame, the frequency content is limited and hence by converting the residual frame into the frequency domain, an encoder can reduce the number of non-zero elements, which leads to better packing, i.e., compression.
A complete frame of an image is typically divided into 8×8 "blocks" for transform coding. The DCT converts small blocks of an image (transforming the entire image at once would be to complex) from the spatial domain into the frequency domain, as mentioned. The DCT represents a visual block of image pixels as a matrix of coefficients. For example, the color values used in an image are approximated by coefficients using a sum of cosine functions. Thus, instead of representing visual data spatially as a set of 64 values arrayed in an 8×8 matrix, transform coding using DCT represents the visual data as a varying signal approximated by a set of 64 cosine functions with respective amplitudes. Desirable compression rates result if many of these 64 amplitudes equal zero.
The first horizontal line of DCT coefficient in a matrix describes horizontal spatial frequencies, those in the first vertical column describe vertical spatial frequencies, and the other DCT coefficients in a matrix describe diagonal components. Since different spatial frequencies have a different impact on human perception of an image, it should be noted that the DCT is also important for applying subjective compression as well as purely spatial compression.
DCT coded blocks are excellent starting material for an MPEG quantization compression step because after DCT coefficients are coarsely quantized an inverse DCT of the quantized coefficients does not noticeably degrade the resulting image. Coarse quantization discards image detail information: the compression is accomplished by reducing the numbers of bits used to describe each pixel, rather than reducing the number of pixels as in sub-sampling techniques. Each pixel is reassigned an alternative value and the number of allowed or possible alternative values is less than the number present in the original image. In a grey-scale image, for example, the number of shades of grey that pixels can have is reduced, i.e., fewer greys are used and the greys have wider ranges into which each pixel must be fitted. Quantization where the number of ranges is small is known as coarse quantization.
The DCT, which provides frequency information for the Huffman coding and the quantization, works well (i.e., takes a large image and outputs a relatively small set of numbers that can represent the image in the frequency domain) if the residual image is "smooth." The smoothness of an image is important to data compression. Since human perception notices a large object more than tiny details within the large object, low spatial frequency information is more important to retain during data compression than high spatial frequency information. Several steps of an MPEG set of compression techniques may filter and discard the high spatial frequency information as required by bandwidth limitations.
Cosine functions as used in the DCT are inherently smooth periodic functions, deriving from properties of smoothly changing periodic (circular or oscillatory) motion. Thus, DCT techniques work best with images that have smooth color and brightness changes between and/or across small areas, that is, across adjacent pixels. In other words, images with many sharp edges (a large quantity of sharp, small-scale detail that is not redundant across the image) are more difficult to compress: there is simply more visual information represented in the image, and proportionately more data needed to faithfully represent the image. These small, sharp visual details are difficult to "fit" to an inherently smooth cosine function. Fortunately, in many video sequences, much of the type of detail is extraneous, random noise that is not part of the video sequence and can be removed.
Artifacts can be unwittingly introduced in a video sequence when the camera moves, when the focus changes, etc. and when other "mistakes" occur, such as subtle changes in the lighting of a scene over time. Since these artifacts are subtle, they appear as high variance noise included in the residual frame that is the starting material for the DCT, and result in a great deal of high frequency energy in the DCT output. The high frequency energy is undesirable for attaining favorable data compression.
Even when high spatial frequency detail is not present as noise—the image may just have a lot of detail, movement, and resulting high frequency error—the high spatial frequency detail can often be left out without noticeable degradation. A visual presentation is often improved by removing "molecularly" precise detail—i.e., a too small-scale faithfulness to detail can appear flawed to the eye. Thus, in the quantization compression step or when an image is decompressed a filter may be used to remove some of the detail. To recover the original detail once high spatial frequency information has been discarded in favor of a higher data compression rate, however, is impossible if the data has been discarded, i.e., if an image is smoothed by having detail discarded and then compressed and transmitted, a decoder at the receiving end cannot regenerate the original detail since it has been irreversibly discarded.


A system-on-chip includes a memory, an error injection controller, an injection logic circuit, and an error detection circuit. The error injection controller is configured to generate and transmit error data, and at least one of read and write access requests associated with the memory to the injection logic circuit. The injection logic circuit is configured to access the memory based on at least one of the read and write access requests to execute at least one of read and write operations. The injection logic circuit is further configured to inject an error in at least one of first data and second data to generate at least one of erroneous first data and erroneous second data, respectively. The error detection circuit is configured to detect an error in at least one of the erroneous first data and the erroneous second data to generate an error signal.

The present disclosure relates generally to electronic circuits, and, more particularly, to a system and a method for injecting errors in a system-on-chip (SoC).
An SoC includes various intellectual property (IP) cores (e.g., math accelerators, image processors, digital signal processors, and the like) that initiate memory operations such as reading and writing of data associated with various memories of the SoC. To detect and correct errors associated with data written to or read from a memory of the SoC, the SoC further includes an error control circuit. In addition, the SoC includes an error injection system that tests the error control circuit by injecting errors in the error control circuit. A conventional error injection system typically executes a set of initialization instructions to generate a read or write access to the memory before performing the error injection. However, when the memory includes non-memory mapped segments, the IP cores of the SoC need to be configured by programming multiple registers of the IP core to generate the read or write access to the memory. Thus, due to the execution of the set of initialization instructions and the configuration of the IP cores, a speed of operation of the SoC is affected and a design complexity to access the memory for performing the error injection increases significantly. Therefore, there exists a need for a technical solution that solves the aforementioned problems of the conventional error injection systems.

System and method for error injection in system-on-chip


Provided herein are database structures, systems, and methods for an anonymous, information exchange platform. The information exchange platform described herein may comprise blockchain structures, decentralized networks, peer-to-peer technology, cryptographic techniques, and/or a combination thereof. Past and present actors associated with a topic of information (e.g., a product) may flexibly exchange information on the information exchange platform by implementing question and answer protocols.

At present, most of the world's economy works in a linear fashion. Raw materials are extracted, products are assembled, more products are assembled out of other products, products are consumed, and products are disposed. A circular economy strives to let as many "consumed" products be reintroduced into the economy instead of being thrown away after a single use. Reintroduction can happen, such as via repairing, re-using, refurbishing, and recycling a product that is otherwise disposed.

Distributed database structures for anonymous information exchange


A liquid crystal display includes: a first substrate; a gate line and a common voltage line that are on the first substrate; a gate insulating layer on the gate line and the common voltage line; a semiconductor layer on the gate insulating layer; a data line and a drain electrode that are on the semiconductor layer; a pixel electrode on the data line and the drain electrode; a passivation layer on the pixel electrode; a common electrode on the passivation layer; a second substrate; and a liquid crystal layer interposed between the first and second substrates. The pixel electrode contacts the drain electrode via a first contact hole, the common electrode contacts the common voltage line via a second contact hole in the gate insulating layer and the passivation layer, and the first and second contact holes are adjacently disposed in a thin film transistor forming region.

(a) Field
The present application relates to a liquid crystal display.
(b) Description of the Related Art
As one of the most widely used flat panel displays (FPDs), a liquid crystal display (LCD) is a display device realized by applying a voltage to electrodes and realigning liquid crystal molecules of a liquid crystal layer so as to adjust an amount of transmitted light.
The LCD has a merit in that it is easily manufactured to be thin, but has a demerit in that side visibility is poor compared with front visibility, and as a result various kinds of alignment methods and driving methods for liquid crystals have been developed.
In order to implement a wide viewing angle, the LCD in which a pixel electrode and a common electrode are formed in one substrate has received attention.
In such an LCD, at least one of the pixel electrode and the common electrode includes a plurality of cutouts, and a plurality of branch electrodes defined by the plurality of cutouts.
In this case, the pixel electrode and the common electrode are electrically insulated from each other, and are respectively connected to different wires to be applied with different voltages.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.

Liquid crystal display having contact holes adjacently disposed in thin film transistor forming region


According to the present invention, even when a position of a printing cylinder is changed, a relative distance to a cleaning unit is invariable. Hence, a contact pressure of the cleaning unit with the printing cylinder is always kept constant. Movable plates are supported on a fixed plate and drivable in reciprocation towards and away from the printing cylinder by an actuator. A first movable plate is mounted with a positioning roller capable of rotationally contacting a bearer of the printing cylinder, thereby positioning the cleaning unit mounted on the second movable plate. The second movable plate is provided with a contact pressure adjusting mechanism of the cleaning unit. Even when changing a rotational center of the printing cylinder by the positioning roller rotationally contacting the bearer, the cleaning unit can be always set at a constant contact pressure.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an engaging apparatus of a printing cylinder cleaning unit and, more particularly, to an engaging apparatus of a printing cylinder cleaning unit which is suited to a case where blanket cylinder of a printing machine takes such a movable structure as to alternately contact an adjacent impression drum and other blanket cylinders.
The cleaning device of the printing cylinder cleans the cylinder surface by making a rotary brush and a cleaning sheet wetted with a cleaning liquid contact with the printing cylinder. For this reason, the cleaning device is contact/separate-driven by the engaging apparatus so that the cleaning device contacts a cylinder drum for a cleaning time but separates from the cylinder drum for a non-cleaning time.
The conventional engaging apparatus includes, as illustrated in FIG. 5, contact/separate operating swing arms 2, disposed at both ends of a cleaning device unit 1, for fixedly holding the unit 1. This swing arm 2 is swingably supported on an unillustrated fixed plate through a rotary support shaft 3. At the same time, an expansion rod of an air cylinder similarly mounted on the fixed plate is connected to this swing arm 2. The swing arm 2 can be thereby swingably driven about the rotary support shaft 3. Then, the swing arm 2 is fitted with a stopper rod 6, and a stopper plate 7 is mounted on the unillustrated fixed plate so that a cleaning portion of a brush or the like of the cleaning device unit 1 properly contacts a cylinder drum 5. With this arrangement, when swinging the swing arm 2 towards the cylinder drum 5 for the purpose of a cleaning operation, the stopper rod 6 impinges on the stopper plate 7, thus effecting a positioning process. In this state, the cleaning portion of the brush or the like is set to contact the cylinder drum 5 at a proper contact pressure. Further, for adjusting the contact pressure, the stopper rod 6 is equipped with an adjusting bolt 8, whereby a contact pressure is arbitrarily settable by adjusting the bolt 8.
A blanket drum to be cleaned rotationally contacts an adjacent impression drum or blanket drum. In the case of a unit equipped with a half deck to change the contact object depending on a print mode, however, the contact object of the blanket drum changes to any one of the impression drum and other blanket drums. In the printing cylinder having a plurality of contact objects during the printing process described above, a rotary shaft core position is varied. It is therefore required that the cleaning device adjusts the position of the engaging apparatus every time the contact changeover is effected. To be specific, when changing the rotational center of the cylinder drum 5, the relative distance to the cleaning device unit 1 varies. This leads to such a problem that the adjusting operation by the above-described adjusting bolt 8 is required each time.

Engaging apparatus of a printing cylinder cleaning unit


The invention concerns a chromatographic device including a column (12) for receiving a chromatographic bed (14) through which flow a first fluid; a piston (36) sliding inside the column (12) an exerting pressure on the bed (14), a chamber (28) containing a second fluid exerting pressure on the piston (36); a regulator (52) for the pressure exerted by the piston (36) on the bed based on the pressure inside the chamber (28), on the flow pressure on the first fluid at the intake of the column (12) and on a reference pressure of the bed (14). Said device enables to separate at least two compounds to be subjected to chromatographic analysis, while adjusting the pressure exerted on the chromatographic bed. The device efficiently uses the chromatographic bed while protecting it.

In a process of separation by chromatography, the efficiency of the column used is a key parameter. The column is generally filled with a solid product in the form of very fine grains usually of a size comprised between 5 and 100 μm, forming the chromatographic bed. In order to obtain increased efficiency, the arrangement of the grains inside the column must be as homogenous as possible, and, moreover, empty volumes between the chromatographic bed and the column inlets-outlets must be avoided. It is known in the prior art, to resort to dynamic axial compression columns in order to ensure the existence of a compact bed, without free space between the inlet-outlet distributors and the bed.
Thus, from the French Patent Application FR-A-2 219 797, a chromatographic device is known, being presented in the form of a column intended to contain a bed of adsorbent material. The device is constituted by a tube comprising a lid and a element sliding in the tube, allowing a pressure to be exerted in the tube. The sliding element is a piston comprising at its head a porous plate which is permeable to fluids. In order to obtain the bed intended for chromatography, a suspension of particles of material capable of constituting an adsorbent bed is introduced into the tube with its lid removed, the piston being moved back sufficiently to allow the introduction of the suspension, without necessarily being at the dead centre. The lid is fitted to the tube, then a pressure is exerted on said suspension by means of the piston. The fluid is forced back through the porous plates, and said particles are compressed between the piston and the lid. This device makes it possible to achieve, in one embodiment, the compression stage of the chosen bed, and the desired compression of the particles when the sliding element has travelled ⅖ of the height of the column.
This device however has the disadvantage of inaccurate compression of the bed, since it is evaluated only by the position of the piston along the tube.
Also known from the European Patent Application EP-A-0 145 578, under priority of the Applications FR-A-2 556 099 and FR-A-2 573 532, is a chromatographic device comprising a tube, one part of which is intended to contain an adsorbent bed. This tube comprises two end walls and a piston sliding longitudinally in the tube. The piston marks, between the two end walls, a separation between one chromatographic chamber containing the bed and an enclosure in which a pressure prevails, such as to move the piston along the tube. The special feature of this device is that the fluid contained in the enclosure is liquid to be chromatographed diverted from the input conduit of the latter. Part of the liquid is diverted towards the enclosure via an enclosure conduit and the other part of the fluid is carried along to the chromatographic chamber via a flow conduit crossing the enclosure and the piston. When the piston is in the equilibrium position, the force exerted from the enclosure side on the piston is equal to the sum of the force on the piston produced by the flow of the liquid into the chamber to be chromatographed, and the mechanical force of the bed on the piston.
This device makes it possible, apart from carrying out the elution stage, to define the pressure exerted on the bed.
In a first embodiment, the piston has a constant section but the pressure in the flow and enclosure conduits is controlled by flap valves. Thus the valves can be calibrated such that the difference between the pressures exerted by the flow of the liquid and by the liquid in the enclosure are adjusted to a set-point pressure on the bed.
In another embodiment, the pressure in the flow and the enclosure conduits is the same, but the piston section varies. The piston is in two sections sliding in corresponding bores, the smaller section A being situated on the chromatographic chamber side and the larger section B on the enclosure side. Due to the difference in the areas of the piston surfaces A and B, the force exerted at B is greater than the force exerted at A. The piston sections can thus be chosen so that the difference between the pressures exerted by the flow of the liquid and by the liquid in the enclosure is adjusted to a set-point pressure on the bed.
In fact, the device described in the above document has various disadvantages. If a drop in pressure occurs in the flow conduit, the pressure exerted on the piston by the liquid in the enclosure is applied directly to the bed, which can give rise to deterioration of the bed. Moreover, the movements of the chromatographic bed not being monitored and the enclosure not being able to move back liquid during the chromatography, this device cannot adjust the pressure exerted on the bed as a function of the movements of the latter. A deterioration of the bed can again result. On the other hand, this system cannot be used in an SMB (Simulated Moving Bed) or VARICOL. In such configurations, the chromatographic devices are mounted in a loop and the liquids injected into the beds alternate. In the device described in EP-A-0 145 578, the same liquid is sent into the bed and into the enclosure, the alternation of injection of liquids gives rise to a mixture of these.

Protective device for the chromatographic bed in dynamic axial compression chromatographic columns


A valve operating system in an internal combustion engine comprises an operating-force generating means for generating an operating force corresponding to the revolution of the engine, an operating-force applying means for operating an engine valve, a hydraulic transmitting means capable of hydraulically transmitting the operating force between the operating-force generating means and the operating-force applying means, a mechanical transmitting means capable of rigidly transmitting the operating force between the operating-force generating means and the operating-force applying means, and a selective switchover means capable of alternatively switching-over the transmissions of the operating force from the operating-force generating means to the operating-force applying means by the hydraulic transmitting means and by the mechanical transmitting means. Thus, it is possible to select either the transmission of the operating force by the hydraulic transmitting means or the transmission of the operating force by the mechanical transmitting means to insure a reliable operation of the engine valve.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a valve operating system in an internal combustion engine.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A valve operating system in an internal combustion engine is conventionally already known, for example, from Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 229912/86, which comprises a hydraulic transmitting means which is capable of hydraulically transmitting the operating force and is provided between an operating-force generating means for generating an operating force corresponding to the revolution of the engine and an operating-force applying means for operating an engine valve.
The above prior art valve operating system has an advantage that the opening and closing characteristic of the engine valve can be accurately controlled by varying the operating-force transmitting mode of the hydraulic transmitting means by the control of the hydraulic pressure. On the other hand, a slide member having an extremely small clearance is required for the hydraulic transmitting means in order to convert the hydraulic pressure into the operating force. When the introduction of a working oil having an extremely low temperature or an inappropriate viscosity results in an abnormally increased viscosity of the working oil, the slide member is accompanied by a large resistance to the operation due to a resistance to the sliding movement thereof in the clearance area and a resistance to the flow of the working oil having an abnormally high viscosity and hence, a delay may be produced in the operation of the engine valve in some cases. When an abnormal closing of an oil passage in the hydraulic transmitting means, an abnormality of an oil supply source or the like is produced, it is difficult to transmit the operating force by the hydraulic transmitting means.
There is also a conventionally known valve operating system which comprises a mechanical transmitting means for mechanically transmitting the operating force between the operating-force generating means and the operating-force applying means, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 7005/91. In this system, a reliable transmittion of the operating force is possible, but it is difficult to accurately control the opening and closing characteristic of the engine valve.

Valve operating system in internal combustion engine


A one-way clutch device comprises a plurality of torque transmission members interposed between an inner race element and an outer race element for performing torque transmission therebetween only during one-way relative rotation. A cage has a pair of flanges for holding the torque transmission members therebetween and a plurality of coupling columns for coupling the paired flanges together. The coupling columns of the cage are fixed to fixing portions provided on an inner peripheral side and an outer peripheral side of the flanges.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a one-way clutch device which is assembled in a starter apparatus, or the like, for an automatic two-wheeled vehicle, and a method for manufacturing the same.
2. Related Background Art
A starter apparatus for an automobile is additionally provided with a one-way clutch device for performing torque transmission from an electric motor side to an internal combustion engine side only, in order to prevent overrun of the electric motor after the internal combustion engine is started. As a one-way clutch device of this type, one type is dominantly used in which clutch elements such as torque transmission rollers, cam surfaces and a spring is interposed between an inner race element and an outer race element, and these clutch elements are accommodated in and retained by a cage which is formed of a steel plate or synthetic resin (see the Japanese Utility Model Registration No. 2574315 (page 3, FIG. 1), the Japanese Patent Publication No. 56-41847 (page 3, FIG. 1), the Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 49-20603 (page 2, FIG. 6) and the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-117955 (page 1, FIG. 2, particularly), for example).
Also, there is disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-117955 a one-way clutch device in which a cage formed of an elastically deformable material comprises a cylindrical portion and a flange, the flange has a plurality of clapper pieces which are elastically deformable and extended substantially in a circumferential direction, and the clapper pieces are inserted in flange receiving grooves formed on the outer race by the use of the elastic deformation of the clapper pieces to be fixed in the axial direction. That is, the flange is provided with a small-diameter portion and the clapper pieces which are extended substantially in the circumferential direction to be elastically deformable formed on the same flat surface thereof. On the outer race, there are formed flange receiving grooves each having the diameter larger than that of the small-diameter portion of the flange and smaller than that of the clapper piece. When each of the clapper pieces is flexed to be moved to the position of the flange receiving groove, the elastically deformable clapper piece is, with the property of returning into its original form, fitted into the flange receiving groove, whereby the one-way clutch is retained at that position in the axial direction.
The conventional one-way clutch device described above functions well without any trouble in a starter apparatus for a four-wheeled vehicle in which the maximum number of rotations of the internal combustion engine is comparatively low which is, e.g., approximately 6,000rpm . However, when this clutch device is used in a starter apparatus for an automatic two-wheeled vehicle in which the maximum number of rotations of the internal combustion engine is comparatively high which is, e.g., approximately 15,000 rpm, such a problem as described below may be brought about. That is, for example, during the operation of the internal combustion engine, a constituent member of the one-way clutch device is affected by the centrifugal force which follows the rotation. In the case of an automatic two-wheeled vehicle, the centrifugal force becomes very large due to the high maximum number of rotations, so that coupling columns of the cage are sometimes deformed to spread in the outer diameter direction. Moreover, since the centrifugal force acting on the spring becomes larger in the same manner, the spring may come off the cage such that its function of urging the torque transmission rollers can not be performed.
There is another fear that the cage and a member and the like assembled in the cage may fall out from the outer race member (outer race element) at the time of conveyance prior to the installation thereof to the main body of the two-wheeled vehicle, an automatic transmission, etc.,
In the one-way clutch disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-117955, the elastically deformable clapper pieces are fitted into the flange receiving groove, with the property of returning into its original form, so that the one-way clutch is retained at that position in the axial direction. For this reason, it is possible to prevent fall out of parts such as a cage. However, the structure disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-117955 mainly depends on the elastic deformation of the clapper pieces, which is not always advantageous to prevention of a fall out of the cage or the like parts.
Further, when the constituent parts of the cage are assembled to complete the cage, the assembling performance of each part is not always satisfactory. For example, when the detention piece is to be fitted in the recess, the detention may be hooked by the recess.

One-way clutch device and method for manufacturing the same


This disclosure describes techniques for estimating a depth of image objects for a two-dimensional (2D) view of a video presentation. For example, a plurality of feature points may be determined for a 2D view. The plurality of feature points may be used to estimate global motion, e.g., motion of an observer (e.g., camera), of the 2D view. For example, the plurality of feature points may be used to generate a global motion frame difference. The global motion frame difference may be used to create a depth map for the 2D view, which may be used to generate an alternative view of the video presentation that may be used to display a three-dimensional (3D) video presentation.

In recent years, technology (e.g., televisions, dvd players, set top boxes, blu-ray players, computers, and the like) has been developed to allow for 3D video presentations in video display devices. However, most existing video content (e.g., stored, downloaded, and/or streaming video content) is only configured to be displayed in 2D. As such, it may be desirable to convert an existing digital representation of a 2D video presentation into a 3D presentation. To do so, it may be desirable to analyze a 2D video presentation to determine a depth of video objects in relation to one another. A representation of video object depth may be referred to as a depth map. Determination of object depth may be used to generate a video presentation that appears in 3D to a user.


A vehicle trim component that has a concealed storage compartment includes a mounting portion and a pair of generally parallel tracks that at least partially define an access opening of the trim component. A flexible lid slidably is disposed between the tracks for movement between a closed position and an open position relative to the access opening. The lid includes a flexible portion and a reinforcement portion coupled to the flexible portion. The flexible portion is configured and arranged to span the access opening when the lid is in the closed position. The reinforcement portion has an array of sliding members and an array of hard, rigid reinforcement inserts. Free ends of each of the reinforcement inserts are located in the tracks. The sliding members are disposed on each of the reinforcement inserts to isolate the reinforcement inserts from contacting the tracks.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to vehicle storage structure. More specifically, the present invention relates to storage structure that includes a sliding lid that is reinforced with ribs having rigid inserts for added strength.
2. Background Information
Vehicles are continually being redesigned and improved for safety and functionality. One area of continuing redesign concerns the storage areas within the vehicle. Storage compartment covers or doors that are based on a single pivot opening type design can sometimes interfere with seat armrests if the covers or doors need to open through the space used by the seat armrests. This causes the size of the storage compartment to be reduced so that the single pivot opening type cover or door to be able to be opened in between the seat armrests.
In recent years, storage structures with sliding lids have been employed, where the sliding lid is moveable between a pair of parallel tracks and can retract within the interior of the storage structure thereby maximizing storage size. However, there are several drawbacks to the use of such sliding lids on storage compartments. For example, such lids typically lack sufficient strength to withstand the weight of a heavy object, should the heavy object be leaned heavily against or set on the lid. Additionally, such lids can slide open if only partially closed.
In view of the above, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure that there exists a need for an improved storage compartment and sliding lid that overcomes the above drawbacks. This invention addresses these needs in the art as well as other needs, which will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure.

Nissan Technical Center Northe America, Inc.