A dimmer switch assembly includes a housing for supporting and enclosing the assembly components. A dimmer adjusting element is mounted on the housing and has a movable portion for movement in first and second directions. An elongated flexible triggering member has a first longitudinal end coupled to the movable portion of the dimmer adjusting element and a second longitudinal end provided in a socket defined by the housing. First and second detectors are spaced from and arranged opposite to one another. The elongated member is interposed between the detectors such that movement of the dimmer adjusting element in the first direction flexes the elongated member toward to activate the first detector, and movement of the dimmer adjusting element in the second direction flexes the elongated member toward to activate the second detector. The detectors have signals associated respectively therewith which are generated by the detectors when the detectors are activated by the triggering device. A dimmer control circuit has as inputs the signals from the first and the second detectors for adjusting a dimmer intensity output signal to decrease the intensity of a light source when the first detector is activated, and to increase the intensity of the light source when the second detector is activated.

This invention relates generally to an electrical switch, and more particularly to a dimmer switch with a control circuit for automatically increasing or decreasing light intensity by either full scale or incremental amounts.
Dimmer switches are well known devices for saving electrical power to or varying the light intensity of an illuminating device usually between a fully on state and a fully off state. Such dimmer switches typically include a variable resistance which the user adjusts for varying the electrical power to the light source to alter the light source intensity. Dimmer switches typically include mechanical components which provide only coarse adjustments to the illuminating device and other loads. When the dimmer switch regulates electrical power to an illuminating device in a vehicle dashboard, for example, the addition of other accessories in the vehicle can typically increase the load of the dimmer switch circuit to a level that can lead to damage to the dimmer switch and surrounding components. Even inadvertent jostling of the dimmer switch can result in the light intensity of the load undesirably jumping to either a fully on state or a fully off state. An object of the present invention is to provide a dimmer switch control assembly that overcomes the drawbacks and disadvantages associated with prior dimmer switches.
In one aspect of the present invention a dimmer switch assembly includes a housing for supporting and enclosing the assembly components. A dimmer adjusting element is mounted on the housing and has a movable portion for movement in first and second directions. A triggering device is coupled to the movable portion of the dimmer adjusting element. First and second detectors, preferably microswitches, are spaced from one another. The triggering device is interposed between the detectors such that movement of the triggering device upon movement of the movable portion of the dimmer adjusting element in the first direction activates the first detector, and movement of the triggering device upon movement of the movable portion of the dimmer adjusting element in the second direction activates the second detector. The detectors generate input signals to a dimmer control circuit such that the dimmer control circuit provides a dimmer intensity output signal to decrease the intensity of a light source when the first detector is activated, and to increase the intensity of the light source when the second detector is activated.
In a first alternative embodiment the dimmer switch assembly includes a dimmer adjusting element mounted on the housing and a movable portion thereof for movement in first and second directions. An elongated flexible triggering member has a first longitudinal end coupled to the movable portion of the dimmer adjusting element and a second longitudinal end provided in a socket fixed in the housing. First and second detectors are spaced from and arranged opposite to one another. The elongated member is interposed between the detectors such that movement of the dimmer adjusting element in the first direction flexes the elongated member toward to activate the first detector, and movement of the dimmer adjusting element in the second direction flexes the elongated member toward to activate the second detector. The detectors have signals associated respectively therewith which are generated by the detectors when the detectors are activated by the triggering device. A dimmer control circuit has as inputs the signals from the first and the second detectors for adjusting a dimmer intensity output signal to decrease the intensity of a light source when the first detector is activated, and to increase the intensity of the light source when the second detector is activated.
In a second alternative embodiment the dimmer switch assembly includes a dimmer adjusting element mounted on the housing so that a movable portion moves in first and second directions. First and second detectors are spaced from one another within the housing. A triggering device has a first end coupled to the movable portion of the dimmer adjusting element and a second end. The triggering device further includes a butterfly-shaped member pivotally coupled to the housing. The second end of the triggering device is movable with the movable portion of the dimmer adjusting element in the first direction for engaging and pivoting a first wing of the butterfly-shaped member toward to thereupon activate the first detector, and the second end of the triggering device is movable with the movable portion of the dimmer adjusting element in the second direction for engaging and pivoting a second wing of the butterfly-shaped member toward to thereupon activate the second detector. A dimmer control circuit has as inputs the signals from the first and the second detectors for adjusting a dimmer intensity output signal to decrease the intensity of a light source when the first detector is activated, and to increase the intensity of the light source when the second detector is activated.
Preferably the control circuit includes a controller that employs pulse width modulation to adjust electrical power supplied to the load. The controller is also preferably programmable to select minimum, maximum and rate of change settings of the duty cycle of the pulse width modulation signal. The control circuit preferably also includes a temperature sensor to lower the electrical power to the load should the surrounding temperature reach a maximum threshold.
An advantage of the present invention when powering an illuminating device is that inadvertent bumping of the dimmer switch assembly will not change the switch intensity to one extreme or the other, but will only change the intensity a small discrete amount.
Another advantage of the present invention is that the programmable controller using pulse width modulation provides flexible and precise adjustments to be made to the light intensity of the load through the dimmer switch assembly.
Another advantage of the present invention is that the temperature sensor will lower the electrical load to a predetermined value when the surrounding temperature reaches a threshold value in order to prevent damage to the dimmer switch assembly and other adjacent components. This feature is particularly useful when the dimmer switch is set up to operate an illuminating device in a vehicle dashboard because the addition of after market accessories can increase the load beyond the design intent.
These and other advantages of the present invention will become more apparent in the light of the following detailed description and accompanying figures.


Composite piezo-electric members having an intended structure are fabricated based on the LIGA process which includes the exposure of synchrotron radiation X-rays, development and lithography. With the intention of reducing the cost of the X-ray exposure mask, it is made of wire gauze having a regular pattern and formed by electrocasting.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of fabricating composite piezo-electric members and a mask used for the fabrication of the same, and particularly to a method of fabricating composite piezo-electric members based on the exposure of synchrotron radiation (SR) X-rays, development and lithography, and to a mask used for the exposure of synchrotron radiation X-rays during the fabrication of composite piezo-electric members.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is known the LIGA (Lithographie Galvanoforming Abformung) process developed in the Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center in Germany as a micro-fabrication technology for accomplishing three-dimensional micro-structures having the thickness, besides the method based on the anisotropic etching of silicon.
The LIGA process is advantageous in that it can fabricate structures having such a large aspect ratio of several micrometers in width and several hundreds micrometers in thickness based on a unified lithographic treatment, it provides a smooth side surface of the fabricated structure, and it allows a wide choice of material including metals and resins.
Basically, as shown in FIG. 1, an X-ray mask (shown by 2) of a metallic film is made based on electron beam drawing in accordance with a mask pattern (shown by 1) designed by means of a CAD system. A PMMA resist material is exposed to the synchrotron radiation X-rays through the X-ray mask, and next it is rendered the development process, thereby forming a resist structure (shown by 3). Next, metal is deposited thickly in the recessed sections of the resist structure based on plating such as electrocasting, and the resist is removed, thereby forming a metallic structure, i.e., metallic mold (shown by 4).
For the small-scale production, the metallic mold is used directly for forming a final product (shown by 7). For the large-scale production, the metallic mold is used to form plastic molds (shown by 5), and the plastic molds are used to form metallic molds (shown by 6) to form final products (shown by 7).
Accordingly, the LIGA process enables the formation of a large number of products from a mold which is formed by a single exposure of synchrotron radiation X-rays.
The X-ray mask used for the LIGA process needs to be made from a thick metallic film due to a longer exposure time as compared with the X-ray lithography used in semiconductor fabrication. Specifically, metallic films used for the X-ray mask include an Au absorber (KfK) at a 15-.mu.m pressure on a titanium foil of 2-.mu.m thickness, or an Au absorber of a 5-.mu.m thickness formed by electron beam drawing on a silicon thick film.
In making an X-ray mask, the pattern design based on the CAD system or the like for designing arbitrary mask patterns is required (shown by 1 in FIG. 1). In manufacturing an X-ray mask that is durable against the synchrotron radiation X-rays, the electron beam drawing equipment or CVD equipment is required.
These X-ray mask manufacturing facilities are expensive, and even if the X-ray mask is ordered from an external firm, each piece of mask will be considerably expensive.

Method of fabricating composite piezo-electric members and a mask used for the fabrication of the same


A scan line to which a selection signal or a non-selection signal is input from its end, and a transistor in which a clock signal is input to a gate, the non-selection signal is input to a source, and a drain is connected to the scan line are provided. A signal input to the end of the scan line is switched from the selection signal to the non-selection signal at the same or substantially the same time as the transistor is turned on. The non-selection signal is input not only from one end but also from both ends of the scan line. This makes it possible to inhibit the potentials of portions in the scan line from being changed at different times.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an object, a method, or a manufacturing method. In addition, the present invention relates to a process, a machine, manufacture, or a composition of matter. In particular, one embodiment of the present invention relates to a semiconductor device, a display device, a light-emitting device, a driving method thereof, or a manufacturing method thereof. In particular, one embodiment of the present invention relates to an active matrix display device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the active matrix display device, a plurality of pixels are arranged in matrix. Each of the pixels displays a specific color in response to an image signal, which allows the whole display device to display a desired image.
In each of the pixels, a transistor for rewriting the image signal is provided. A gate of the transistor is connected to a scan line. The potential of the scan line is controlled to control switching of the transistor. Note that the scan line is connected to the gates of the transistors included in the plurality of pixels arranged in a specific row. That is, in the active matrix display device, rewriting of the image signal is performed for each specific row.
In the active matrix display device, the number of scan lines is the same as the number of rows of the plurality of pixels arranged in matrix. Scan line driver circuits that control the potentials of the scan lines are provided in the active matrix display device. The scan line driver circuits can be collectively provided on one side of the plurality of pixels arranged in matrix; alternatively, the scan line driver circuits can be separately provided (a first scan line driver circuit and a second scan line driver circuit can be provided) on the both sides thereof (see Patent Documents 1 and 2).

SEMICONDUCTOR ENERGY LABORATORY CO., LTD.


A printer for printing character information on an optical disk using an ink cartridge. The printer comprises a printer cover for opening/closing a cartridge receiving section into which the ink cartridge will be loaded. When the ink cartridge is loaded into the cartridge receiving section, the cover is closed and then the optical disk is inserted into the printer. Then, printing is started. The cover is engaged with the printer body in a closed state. The cover is disengaged by operating an operation button. When the optical disk is inserted into the printer body, an inlet cover is pushed by the optical disk so as to be upstanding. This causes a lock member to protrude so as to engage with the operation button, thereby locking the operation button and hence rendering the cover unopenable.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to printers and more particularly to a printer that prints on a recording medium on which data is recordable.
2. Background Art
In the past, there have been printers that print characters of a title for data recorded on a recording medium such as an optical disk comprising a CD-R (Compact Disk-Recordable) where data is recorded as disclosed, for example, in Japanese patent publication 2003-72155. These printers comprise a tray where a recording medium is loaded. The tray is movable between the inside of the printer body and its outside. When data is printed, the tray is moved away from the printer body, a recording medium is loaded on the tray, the tray with the recording medium thereon is returned into the printer body and a printing mechanism provided within the printer body prints on the recording medium. The printing mechanism comprises a carriage on which a thermal head is mounted. The carriage is moved above the tray received within the printer body to print on the recording medium on the tray in a predetermined range. However, the printers' structure is not necessarily simple because the printer body includes the tray with the recording medium loaded thereon is moved relative to the printer body and the printing mechanism that moves the carriage, on which the thermal head is mounted, within the printer body.
In view of these conventional printers, the applicants invented an improved printer for printing on a recording medium, and more particularly, a printer comprising an improved printing mechanism that prints on a conventional printing tape, as disclosed in Japanese patent publication 2000-225746.
The printing mechanism of this printer comprises a printing mechanism where a thermal head and a platen are placed upstanding in opposing relationship at a predetermined position within the printer body. An ink cartridge containing an ink ribbon is loadable into a cartridge receiving section provided at a predetermined position within the printer body in order to supply the printing mechanism with the ink ribbon. By driving the printing mechanism, a recording medium set in the upstanding state is conveyed along with the ink ribbon such that data is printed in a thermal transferring manner on a label surface of the recording medium.
As in the conventional tape printer, in this printer when a tape cartridge that contains a printing tape and an ink ribbon is loaded into the cartridge receiving section, thermal transfer printing is performed on the printing tape. When an ink cartridge that contains a recording medium and an ink ribbon is loaded into the cartridge receiving section, printing is performed on the recoding medium. In this case, the printer body is flat box-shaped and has a small height dimension compared to the diameter dimension of a disk-like recording medium. Thus, in order that the recording medium is loaded in an upstanding state into the printer body and conveyed upstanding while being printed, a slit-like inlet through which the recording medium is inserted is provided along the conveyance passage in a printer cover positioned above the conveyance passage for covering the cartridge receiving section openably.
In this printer, the cover is opened and then an ink cartridge is loaded into the cartridge receiving section. Then the cover is closed, and an upstanding recording medium is loaded at a set position within the printer body through the slit-like inlet in the printer cover. In this state, substantially an upper half of the printing medium appears outside the cover, a middle portion of the printing medium is in the slit-like inlet in the cover and substantially a lower half of the printing medium is loaded into the printer body. When the printing mechanism starts to print, an ink in the ink ribbon is transferred by heat produced by the thermal head to the label surface of the recording medium that is held between the thermal head and the platen and conveyed upstanding along with the ink ribbon in an superimposed manner.
This printer is constructed based on the conventional tape printer. A keyboard is provided on the user's side part of an upper or front surface of the printer body, including keys for inputting information to be printed, performing various setting operations and giving various commands about print control. A liquid crystal display that displays information to be printed and/or necessary for printing and the cartridge receiving section where a tape cartridge is loaded exchangeably are disposed side by side right and left at positions remote from the user on the front surface of the printer body with an openable cover for the display and the cartridge receiving section. This is a widely employed layout of the printer.
In order to load and unload a cartridge into and from the cartridge receiving section easily in this printer, the cartridge receiving section has a large opening, the cover that normally covers the cartridge receiving section is attached rotatable to the printer body by hinges provided at the back of the printer body such that an open cover is not a hindrance to the cartridge exchanging operation. When the cover is open, it is upstanding or at an angle of 90 degrees or more at the back of the printer body compared to a state where the cover is closed. An engaging mechanism is provided between the cover and the printer body for maintaining the cover closed against the printer body. An operating button is provided on the front surface of the printer body to release the engaging state of the engaging mechanism when the cover is opened. An uplifting mechanism is provided to uplift the cover on the opposite free end side of the cover from the hinges in a releasing direction when the engaged state of the cover by the engaging mechanism is released. This facilitates an opening operation of the cover subsequent to its releasing operation.
When it is found that no ink cartridge is loaded after a recording medium is loaded into the printer body or exchange of an ink cartridge once loaded with another one of a different color is desired, the cover need be opened for loading or exchanging purposes. However, when the cover is opened inadvertently with the recording medium set into the printer body, an inner edge of the slit-like inlet in the cover will possibly hit the label surface of the recording medium, thereby damaging the same.
More particularly, in this printer the conveying direction of the recording medium, the extending direction of the slit-like inlet in the cover and the label surface of the recording medium set into the printer body are parallel to the extending direction of the hinge axle around which the cover is turned for opening/closing the cartridge receiving section. When the cover is turned around the hinge axle in the opening direction, the inner edge of the slit-like inlet will possibly hit the label surface of the recording medium, thereby damaging the same.
When the user inadvertently pushes the operation button that releases the engagement of the cover with the printer body after the recording medium is loaded into the printer body, the uplifting mechanism starts to operate such that the cover is lifted on its free-end side and the inner edge of the inlet in the cover will hit the recording medium, thereby causing the recording medium to deviate from its set position within the printer body and hence from its printing position.
When the cover is disengaged from the printer body in an incomplete closed state, the inner edge of the inlet would hit the label surface of the recording medium that is conveyed along the inlet or the conveyance of the recording medium would be hindered, thereby providing no good printing.

Prevention of damage to an optical disk in a printer due to inadvertent handling


Methods and systems for the efficient and non-redundant transmission of a single video program in multiple frame rates, optionally employing a combination of video coding standards, in a way that is backwards-compatible with legacy receivers only supportive of some subsection of frame rates or of some subsection of video coding standards.

There are many different digital television compressed video picture formats, some of which are HD. HDTV currently has the highest digital television spatial resolution available. The picture formats currently used in HDTV are 1280×720 pixels progressive, 1920×1080 pixels interlaced, and 1920×1080 pixels progressive. These picture formats are more commonly referred to as 720P, 1080i and 1080P, respectively. The 1080i format, which comprises of interlaced pictures, each picture or frame being two fields, shows 30 frames per second and it is deemed as the MPEG-2 video format requiring the most severe consumption of processing resources. The 1080P format shows 60 frames per second, each frame being a progressive picture, and results in a doubling of the most severe consumption of processing resources. A receiver capable of processing a maximum of 1080i-60 is also capable of processing a maximum 1080P-30. However, broadcasters intend to introduce 1080P-60 emissions and CE manufacturers intend to provide HDTVs and HDTV monitors capable of rendering 1080P-60, in the near future. 1080P-60 includes twice as much picture data as either 1080i-60 or 1080P-30. Dual carrying channels or programs as 1080P-60 and 1080i-60 would not be an acceptable solution because it triples the channel consumption of a single 1080i-60 transmission.
Therefore, there is a need for encoding 1080P-60 video for transmission in a way that facilitates the superior picture quality benefits of a 1080P-60 signal to 1080P-60 capable receivers while simultaneously enabling legacy 1080i-60 capable receivers to fulfill the equivalent of a 1080P-30 signal from the transmitted 1080P-60 signal.

Receiving and processing multiple video streams associated with a video program


Provided is a coordinated communication method in which a plurality of cells cooperate to perform multi-antenna transmission and reception in a cellular wireless communication system. A terminal wirelessly transmits channel state information (CSI) feedback to a serving cell and at least one coordinating cell. The serving cell and the coordinating cell perform multi-point coordinated communication using the CSI feedback. Even if the serving cell and the coordinating cell belong to different base stations, information exchange between the cells is minimized, so that a transmission delay and a traffic increment of a backhaul network can be prevented.

In a cellular wireless communication system, terminals located in a cell boundary are limited in increasing a data transmission rate due to large interference from other cells. Multi-cell coordinated communication, a technique for increasing a data transmission rate of terminals located in a cell boundary, is one of candidate techniques to be applied to a 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE)-Advanced system. The multi-cell coordinated communication for an Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) downlink which is being discussed for the LTE-Advanced system can be divided into the following two fields:
Joint transmission (joint processing): a terminal receives data from a plurality of transmission points; and
Coordinated scheduling: a terminal receives data from one transmission point. Scheduling, precoding or beam forming of a terminal is performed through coordination (or cooperation) of multiple cells.
In most cases, one cell usually has one transmission point.
In a conventional multi-cell coordinated transmission method, only a serving cell receives channel state information (CSI) transmitted from a terminal via the uplink, information necessary for cooperation is extracted from the CSI, and the extracted information is transmitted to a surrounding coordinating cell. However, if the serving cell and the coordinating cell belong to different base stations, there is a problem in that information exchange between the cells causes a transmission delay and a traffic increment of a backhaul network.
As a conventional multi-cell coordinated communication method, U.S. Pat. No. 7,428,268, entitled "Cooperative MIMO in multicell wireless networks", discloses a joint transmission operation under a structure in which the serving cell and the coordinating cell belong to different base stations. In U.S. Pat. No. 7,428,268, a method in which a base station of the serving cell and a base station of the coordinating cell perform joint transmission is described. However, as described above, if the serving cell and the coordinating cell belong to different base stations, there is still a problem in that the transmission delay and the traffic overhead of the backhaul network are caused at the time of information exchange between the cells.

Cooperative communication method in cellular wireless communication system and terminal for performing the method

Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute


An apparatus, and a method performed by the apparatus, are disclosed wherein the apparatus can be mounted on an unmanned vehicle and arranged to act upon a payload. The payload can be mounted on the unmanned vehicle and, under an action of the apparatus, is able to be activated. The method can include receiving an activation instruction from an entity remote from the unmanned vehicle; determining whether or not the received activation instruction is valid by performing a validation process; and in response to determining that the received activation instruction is valid, activating the payload. In response to determining that the received activation instruction is not valid, activation of the payload may be prevented or opposed.

Unmanned aircraft are powered aerial vehicles that do not carry a human operator. They may fly autonomously or be piloted remotely.
A data link employed to facilitate communication between an unmanned aircraft and its operator, e.g. a satellite data-link, may have uncertain performance, availability, and integrity.
In manned armed aircraft, the weapon control is typically performed by the airborne operator. The airborne operator interprets relevant Rules of Engagement to ensure weapons release is authorised. Typically, the weapon is released using a control sequence to release a series of electro-mechanical safety critical switches. The control sequence is usually performed on the aircraft. The data-link employed within a manned aircraft for the control of the weapon systems is typically robust, reliable, and of high integrity relative to a data link used for communication between an unmanned aircraft and its operator.


A multi-layer lamination is formed from a core sandwiched between a first oriented plastic layer and a second oriented plastic layer. The orientations of the plastic layers cross at an angle between but not equal to zero degrees and 180 degrees relative to one another. A method for making the lamination is also disclosed.

The present invention relates to a laminate sheet construction. More particularly, the present invention relates to a laminated material having cross-laminated plastic film layers.
Cross-laminates of uniaxially oriented films from crystalline polymers are known to exhibit a number of beneficial properties including improved tear resistance, as for example is disclosed in Rasmussen, U.S. Pat. No. 3,322,613, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. A more modern discussion of forming multi-layer, oriented or "bias-cut" plastic films is described in Barnes et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,284,344, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
Despite advances in multi-layer film technology, use of such films as the strength layer in a laminated structure with paperboard are still characterized by relatively poor tear characteristics. In effect, the poor tear characteristics of the paperboard are imparted to the cross-laminated layers and the tear propagates through each of the layers. Also, in fabricating products, the dissimilar materials of such laminates can present a number of problems including poor adhesion of the film to the paper board surface, which can result in spalling and other undesirable characteristics in the finished laminated product.
Accordingly, there is a need for a highly tear resistant laminate. Preferably such a laminate is formed using known material and known manufacturing methods.

Cross laminated oriented plastic film with integral paperboard core


A method for determining a nicotine content in a gas mixture. The method includes exposing a metal oxide-based sensor to the gas mixture, applying a temperature profile over time to the metal oxide so that the temperature of the metal oxide, proceeding from a predetermined first temperature level, is brought to a predetermined second temperature level under controlled first transition conditions, and the temperature is brought from the second temperature level to a third predetermined temperature level under controlled second transition conditions, ascertaining a transient specific electrical resistance of the metal oxide at at least one certain point in time during the application with the temperature profile, and determining the nicotine content based on the ascertained resistance. A processing unit and a computer program product for carrying out the method are also described.

European Patent Application No. EP 2 995 938 A1 describes a chemical sensor in which at least one layer of a metal oxide is situated between two electrodes, one or multiple heating element(s) being situated to heat the metal oxide layer to a predefined temperature according to a predefined temperature profile, and a control unit for controlling the heating elements, the control unit and the heating elements being designed in such a way that they heat the metal oxide layer when a measurement is initialized, that the layer temperature follows a temperature profile, including an activation period, during which the layer temperature is above a measuring temperature, prior to a measuring period, during which the layer temperature is at the measuring temperature, and the control unit deriving a concentration value of a gas compound from the resistance of the metal oxide layer as it was registered during the measuring time period.

Method for determining a nicotine content in a gas mixture


An inlet adapter includes a top portion threadingly engageable to a body portion, an expandable portion disposed adjacent the body portion, and a bolt threadingly engageable to the top portion, the bolt securing the expandable portion adjacent the body portion and compressing the expandable portion in association with rotation of the body portion about the top portion.

The present invention relates to pressure testing systems, and more particularly to a radiator inlet adapter for sealing a radiator filler neck in order to perform a pressure test of a coolant system of an internal combustion engine. The radiator inlet adapter advantageously provides a simple adapter for use with filler necks of various diameters thereby obviating the need for costly adapter kits and pressure testing devices and systems.
Various devices and systems have been devised for the purpose of facilitating the pressure testing of coolant systems. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,458,523 entitled "Cooling System Pressure Tester" discloses a cooling system pressure tester which allows consumers to determine the approximate vent pressure of their automotive cooling system, as well as to check for leaks in the system. The device includes a connecting and restriction element for introducing water into the system and an adjustable pressure relief valve for limiting the maximum pressure. The device includes a tee having a side branch, a first end branch and a second end branch. The first and second end branches have fittings respectively associated therewith for connection respectively with a source of water and the cooling system of an automobile. The device must therefore be connected to the cooling system by means of the second end branch fitting.
A pressure tester cap is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,679,424 entitled "Pressure Tester Cap". The cap includes an air valve sleeve which further houses a conventional Schrader® type air valve, and is incorporated within a pressurized radiator cap which when mounted on a neck of a radiator of a motor vehicle, permits the cooling system to be charged with compressed air from an external source, so as to ascertain if there are any leaks in the radiator system. The disclosed cap is adapted to fit only one size radiator neck.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,888,980 entitled "Apparatus and Method for Testing, Filling and Purging Closed Fluid Systems" discloses an evacuation unit for testing the fluid tightness of a closed fluid system, filling the system with system fluid, and/or purging the system fluid of entrained gas. The evacuation unit includes a source of system fluid, an air operated venturi vacuum pump, a hose for releasable and sealable connection to an access port of the closed fluid system, and a three way valve for selected positioning between a first position communicating the vacuum pump with the flexible hose system to produce a vacuum in the system, a second position isolating the flexible hose and system to test for fluid tightness, and a third position communicating the system for filling the system through the access port with system fluid. A filler head is disclosed for releasable and sealable connection to the access port of the closed fluid system. The filler head is adapted to fit only one size access port.
Another pressure testing device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,105,653 entitled "Pressure Testing Device for Vehicle Radiators and Cooling Systems". The device includes a connecting means and restriction component for discharging compressed air into the coolant system with an adjustable pressure relief valve for limiting the maximum pressure. The device further includes a radiator inlet adapter having an upper body with flanged ears designed to hold the adapter in place when installed on a radiator or other test device, a spring to hold pressure and also allow a secondary pressure relief when the device is attached for test purposes, and upper and lower spring backing plates for centering a sealing washer on a radiator filler neck. The radiator inlet adapter is adapted to fit only one size radiator inlet.
A device for monitoring the temperature and pressure of a liquid coolant in a cooling system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,324,114 entitled "Temperature and Pressure Sensor for Cooling Systems and Other Pressurized Systems". The device includes a sealant which seals around a needle from a pressure or temperature probe and re-seals itself upon removal of the needle. A body of the device is attachable to an opening member of a liquid cooling system, such as a radiator. The body includes tabs of a flange which are insertable in recesses of a lip of a radiator neck. The device is adapted to fit only one size radiator neck.
A cooling system pressure tester is available from Danaher Corporation of Washington, D.C. and includes a hand pump and a plurality of adapters connectable to a radiator filler neck. The adapters are sized and configured to fit a plurality of coolant system filler necks including small diameter necks (31 mm). Other commercially available systems include devices having an expandable bladder for sealing the filler neck.
As can be seen, there is a need in the art for a radiator inlet adapter for use with radiator filler necks of various diameters which is of simple construction and easy to use.


A canary value is used to validate a message from a non-web browser client application to a web server providing web services to mitigate cross-site forgery attacks. The canary value is generated by the server in party by applying a hash function to a user identifier and a time stamp. The server provides the canary value to the client application in response to receiving a message that does not have a canary or has an expired canary. The client application upon receiving an error message with a canary message will resend the prior message with the canary value present. The client application caches the canary value for subsequent messages until a new canary value is received. The canary value allows the server to ignore messages generated by the client application under control of an attacker.

Internet based communications frequently involve a client application executing on a user's computer interacting with an application executing on a remote server. One common example is a user accessing a remote website, which involves using a suite of web-based protocols. These web-based protocols can also be used for accessing web-based services hosted by servers, but which do not involve accessing a website.
The ubiquitous access afforded by the Internet also affords the possibility of malicious intervention by other users. Various methods are known for a nefarious entity (termed an "attacker" herein) to initiate attacks over the Internet. An attacker may send a virus to infect a computer, copy or delete data from a computer, or otherwise obtain information stored in a computer. The computer may be the client computer or the server computer. Other attacks may slow down the processing capabilities of the computer or otherwise create malicious actions.
One form of attack involves the attacker using malicious Javascript® code on a web page to cause the client computer to send a legitimate message to a legitimate website. The user may be a customer of the business operating the website, and the website itself is what it purports to be. The message sent from the user's computer to the website is, by itself, conventional in form. In other words, the website does not detect any abnormal formatting or requests in the received message. However, the user may not have known that the message to the website was sent. The malicious action is causing the client computer to send the message to the website. The message could have instructed the website, for example, to delete user files, delete information at the website, or transfer money out of the user's account. This presumes that the web server provides document management services, website hosting services, or banking services, respectively.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the disclosure made herein is presented.

Dynamic cross-site request forgery protection in a web-based client application


A method for producing a semiconductor device including forming an electrode or an electrode wiring by forming a tantalum thin film by sputtering is provided. In this method, a krypton gas in which nitrogen is mixed as a reactive gas is used as a sputtering gas, and a product of the pressure of the sputtering gas and a target-substrate distance is set in the range of 0.01 m.Pa to 0.08 m.Pa.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sputtering method for forming a tantalum thin film electrode or electrode wiring for a semiconductor device.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the past, in a liquid crystal display device, a display pattern is formed on a screen by selecting display picture elements arranged in a matrix. An active matrix driving method can be used for selecting display picture elements. According to this method, independent picture element electrodes are arranged so as to correspond to the respective picture elements, and switching elements are connected to the respective picture element electrodes, thereby performing a display. A liquid crystal display device using this method enables a display with a high contrast and can be put into practical use for TV, etc.
Examples of the switching elements for selectively driving picture element electrodes include TFT (thin film transistor) elements, MIM (metal-insulator -metal) elements, MOS (metal oxide semiconductor) transistor elements, diodes, and varistors. A voltage signal applied between the picture element electrodes and the electrodes facing thereto is switched (ON or OFF), whereby an optical modulation of liquid crystal existing therebetween is visualized as a display pattern.
In order to provide the liquid crystal display device of an active matrix driving system mentioned above with high precision, it is necessary to make the picture element electrodes as small as possible. In order to make the screen larger, for example, in the case where the switching elements are TFTs, it is necessary to make gate electrode wirings and source electrode wirings thinner and longer. Moreover, in the case where the TFT has inverted staggered structure, since the gate electrode wiring is formed mn an initial stage of the process for forming the TFT, it is required that the wiring be thin and have a sufficiently low resistance. Also, it is required that a material having a strong corrosion resistance be used for the wiring so as to withstand the subsequent process. In the past, as a material which satisfies these requirements, a metal material such as tantalum (Ta), chromium (Cr), or titanium (Ti) has been used. In particular, tantalum is mainly used, since tantalum has a strong acid resistance and a fine selfoxidized film can be obtained by an anodic oxidation method when tantalum is used as the material.
When a metallic thin film made of tantalum is formed by sputtering, argon is used as a sputtering gas in the conventional method, so that a tantalum structure becomes .beta.-Ta and its specific resistance is in the range of 170 .mu..OMEGA..cm to 200 .mu..OMEGA..cm. As a conventional well-known method for decreasing this specific resistance, there is a method for doping argon with nitrogen. It is confirmed that according to this method, the specific resistance can be minimized in the range of 70 .mu..OMEGA..cm to 100 .mu..OMEGA..cm.
However, the specific resistance at this level is not Sufficient. When the gate electrode wiring is made longer and thinner in a liquid crystal display device using the tantalum film as the electrode wiring for the purpose of realizing a large screen and high precision, the electrical resistance of the gate electrode wiring rapidly rises and the time constant of the gate electrode wiring increases. When the time constant of the gate electrode wiring increases, a rising of an ON signal at the TPT disposed at the and of the gate electrode wiring becomes slow. Also, a falling of the ON signal from-ON to OFF becomes slow. Because of this, the picture element at the end of the gate electrode wiring is not sufficiently charged during the writing of its signal, and the picture element takes in signals of the other picture elements. As a result, the liquid crystal display device cannot perform a normal display.
Accordingly, in order for the liquid crystal display device to perform a normal display, it is necessary to decrease the electrical resistance of the gate electrode wiring. As a means for this, a gate electrode wiring with a two-layered or three-layered structure using a material which can be readily formed into a thin film having a low specific resistance such as aluminum and molybdenum is considered.
However, in this kind of gate electrode wiring with a multi-layered structure, the process for manufacturing becomes complicated because of the necessity of an increase in the processes for forming films and the photolithography processes. In addition, the above-mentioned materials have a lower acid resistance compared with tantalum, so that the gate electrode wiring is likely to be damaged in the process after forming the TPT and a disconnection occurs, resulting in decreased reliability and yield.
In Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 62-205656, a method for decreasing the specific resistance of a thin film which is a material for the gate electrode wiring by mixing molybdenum with tantalum is proposed. According to this method, the specific resistance of a thin film becomes 40 .mu..OMEGA..cm.
However, when an alloy is formed by mixing molybdenum with tantalum, molybdenum contained in the film is eluted in the process for anodizing the gate electrode wiring, and an oxide film whose molecular orientation is denser than that of an oxide film obtained by anodizing tantalum cannot be obtained.

Method for producing a semiconductor device having a tantalum thin film


For equalizing a speech signal constituted by an observed sequence of successive input sound frames, which speech signal is liable to be affected by disturbances, the speech signal is modelled by means of a hidden Markov model and, at each instant t: equalization filters are constituted in association with the paths in the Markov sense at instant t; at least a plurality of the equalization filters are applied to the frames to obtain, at instant t, a plurality of filtered sound frame sequences and an utterance probability for each of the paths respectively associated with the equalization filters applied; the equalization filter corresponding to the most probable path in the Markov sense is selected; and the filtered frame supplied by the selected equalization filter is selected as the equalized frame.

In ASR systems, when recognition is performed locally for voice control of "hands-free" telephones, computers, data terminals, or the like, known techniques seek to reduce disturbances introduced by additive noise. They include, in particular, filtering by spectrum subtraction, antenna filtering, Markov model state filtering, or in-line addition of room noise to reference models.
Markov state filtering consists in applying a spectrum subtraction filter (a Wiener filter) knowing the Markov model of the speech and the most probable state in which the system is to be found at an instant t. The clean signal model is given by the state of the Markov model, and the noise model is estimated from the silences preceding the word from which noise is to be removed.
For centralized recognition, the purpose of known techniques is to reduce the effects of telephone lines by subtracting the DC component from cepstrum vectors as estimated over a sufficiently broad horizon. For a digital telephone signal subdivided into windows, the notion of "horizon" designates a given integer number of successive windows. For a more detailed description of that type of approach, reference may be made to the article by C. Mokbel, J. Monne, and D. Jouvet, entitled "On-line adaptation of a speech recognizer to variations in telephone line conditions", Eurospeech, pp. 1247-1250, Berlin 1993. For a horizon that is broad enough, it is observed that the mean of the cepstrum vectors represents the effects of telephone lines, with this observation being particularly true when changes of channel characteristics take place slowly.
In general, a system for removing noise or for equalization is based on knowing the characteristics of the clean signal and the characteristics of the noise or the disturbances. Unfortunately, the system is much more complicated if the model of the clean system or its parameters are unknown.
For example, if it is assumed that a segment of clean speech is the output from an autoregressive system whose parameters are unknown, an "estimate-maximize" (EM) type method can be used for removing noise so as to obtain an estimate of the parameters of the autoregressive model and so as to filter out disturbances (see for example the article by G. Celeux and J. Diebolt, entitled "Une version de type recuit simule de l'algorithme EM" A simulated annealing type version of the EM algorithm!, Rapports de Recherche No. 1123, Programme 5, INRIA, November 1989).
It is also possible to use blind equalization which is based on the statistics specific to the digital signal to determine the criterion for adapting the coefficients of the equalizer that performs equalization. In particular, document FR-A-2 722 631 describes an adaptive filter method and system using blind equalization of a digital telephone signal and the application thereof to telephone transmission and/or to ASR. The method described in that document is based entirely on general statistics relating to the speech signal and on the assumption of the telephone channel has a convolutive effect that is almost constant.
Such approaches give satisfactory results if simple assumptions can be made about the clean signal, i.e. if it can be assumed to be autoregressive and/or Gaussian and/or steady, but that is not always possible.
Other recent studies seek to use statistical vocabulary models in order to reduce the disturbances and/or variability of the speech signal, thereby enabling recognition to be more robust.
All of the above work suffers from the drawback of being incapable of providing an in-line application in a manner that is synchronous with the sound frame. The methods proposed wait until the end of the signal that is to be recognized, and then perform iterations for estimating biases before identifying the signal after noise removal or equalization. Further, estimators of the bias to be subtracted depend directly, or indirectly in a "estimate-maximize" method, on the best path in the Markov model, where a path or alignment in the Markov sense is an association between a run of sound frames and a run of states (or transitions) to which the probability densities of the model correspond. This dependency risks biasing the approach if the initial observation is highly disturbed, since such disturbances can give rise to false alignments.
The approach proposed by the present invention differs fundamentally from the approaches described previously, it is more general, and it remedies the above-mentioned drawbacks in that it is synchronous with the sound frame.

Decision-directed frame-synchronous adaptive equalization filtering of a speech signal by implementing a hidden markov model


A pressure sensor has a detecting unit configured to detect a difference between outputs from deformation detecting units of first and second pressure variation sensors. The first and second pressure variation sensors are connected to one another so that the gap of the first pressure variation sensor communicates the exterior of the cavities of the first and second pressure variation sensors and the interior of the cavity of the first pressure variation sensor, and so that the gap of the second pressure variation sensor communicates the interior of the cavity of the first pressure variation sensor and the interior of the cavity of the second pressure variation sensor.

1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a pressure sensor.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the related art, for example, a differential pressure sensor (pressure sensor) including two pressure sensor elements of both-side pressure receiving type arranged in the proximity of two symmetrical positions on a pressure introducing route so as to have reverse polarities from each other, and configured to amplify differential of outputs from both of the pressure sensor elements, thereby obtaining an output from which a detection error due to temperature characteristics of the pressure sensor elements and vibrations caused by disturbance are compensated is known (for example, see JP-A-4-29027).
Incidentally, if the pressure sensor of the related art described above has, for example, a gentle or no frequency dependency of sensitivity with respect to the pressure in accordance with the shape and material of the sensing portion, and has a sensitivity substantially equivalent to a wide range of frequency band, a noise (sound) caused by signals in other frequency bands may increase with respect to signals in a desired frequency band, so that there is a risk of saturation of the output from the pressure sensor due to the signals other than the desired frequency band.


A disc drive is constructed from a main body which includes a mechanism unit having a disc rotating mechanism for rotating a disc and a play back mechanism for playing back information recorded on the disc, disc tray movably provided with respect to the main body for supporting a disc and a casing for housing the main body. The disc drive is provided with vibration absorbing members for suppressing transmission of vibration caused by high speed rotation of the disc from the main body to the casing. The vibration absorbing members are formed of elastical members and they are arranged between the side portions of the main body and the inside of the casing, thereby the main body is supported by the casing through the vibration absorbing members to prevent vibrations caused in the main body from being transmitted to the casing. Further, the casing has a U-shaped side plate and a top plate fixed to the side plate by screws, in which the top plate is in point contact with the side plate through a plurality of protrusions formed on upper edges of the side plate. This point contact between the top plate and the side plate makes it possible to prevent rattling from being caused by the transmitted vibrations, thereby preventing generation of noise.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disc drive for playing back or recording and playing back an optical disc.
2. Description of the Prior Art
One example of a disc drive for playing back an optical disc such as a CD-ROM or the like is disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Application No. HEI-5-69414. FIG. 1 is an exploded perspective view of the structure of the disc drive disclosed in the Utility Model application.
As shown in this drawing, a disc drive 1B is constructed from a main body 2B, a disc tray 4 which moves backwards and forwards with respect to the main body 2B to enable the disc tray 4 to be insertable into and ejectable out of the main body 2B, a circuit substrate assembly 12B arranged at a lower portion of the main body 2B, and a casing 10B which houses all these elements.
The casing 10B is constructed from a bottom plate 11 and a case 14 which covers the top of the main body 2B. The bottom plate 11 and the case 14 are made from metal plates which have undergone cutting and bending processes to form a desired shape.
The case 14 is constructed from a top plate 14a, side walls 14b, 14c which face each other through the main body 2B, a rear wall 14d which connects the rear vertical edges of the side walls 14b, 14c, and a front plate portion 14e at the front thereof.
Provided on the bottom surface (inside surface) of the top plate 14a is a disc clamper 38 which is adapted to rotate about the same axis as that of a turntable 26 (described below).
Formed in the front plate 14e of the case 14 is an aperture 14 which allows the disc tray 4 to be passed therethrough. A front panel 16 having an aperture 16a which is mated with the aperture 141 is mounted on the front plate 14e via a cushioning member frame 15.
The main body 2B includes a roughly container-shaped chassis 20 which is provided with a mechanism unit 22 and a displacement mechanism (ascending/descending mechanism) 30. The mechanism unit 22 is arranged within a concave portion formed in the bottom portion 20a of the chassis 20, and the displacement mechanism 30 is arranged in the front side thereof.
The main body 2 is fixed to the bottom plate 11 and the case 14 by means of screws 17.
The mechanism unit 22 includes a base 23 which is provided with a spindle motor 25, a turntable 26 which is provided on a rotation axle of the spindle motor 25, an optical head 27, and an optical head moving mechanism 28.
Further, a rear end portion (toward the back of the main body 2) of the base 23 is supported by an insulator 29 to enable the base 23 to be freely pivotal with respect to the chassis 20.
The displacement mechanism 30 is constructed from a motor 31 provided at a front portion of the chassis 20, a rotational speed reduction mechanism 32 for reducing the rotational speed of the motor 31, a cam wheel (ascending/descending gear member) 33 which is rotated by the rotational speed reduction mechanism 32, and a base ascending/descending member (not shown in the drawing) which is adapted to be displaced (rotated) in accordance with the rotation of the cam wheel 33.
The cam wheel 33 includes a lower gear 33a which meshes with a pinion gear of the rotational speed reduction mechanism 32, and an upper gear 33b which meshes with a rack gear (not shown in the drawing) formed on the bottom surface of the disc tray 4 in the forward and backward direction thereof. Further, a circumferential cam groove is formed in the outer circumference of the axle portion between the gears 33a and 33b. This cam groove is slidably engaged with a protruding follower (not shown in the drawing) formed on the base ascending/descending member. Consequently, as the cam wheel is rotated, the follower and the base ascending/descending member are displaced, and this causes the base 23 to pivot; namely, the front portion of the base 23 is moved up or down.
The disc tray 4 includes a shallow concave disc supporting portion 4a for supporting an optical disc 3. On the bottom surface of the disc tray 4, there is is formed a rack gear (not shown in the drawing) which meshes with the upper gear 33b of the cam wheel 33. Consequently, as the cam wheel 33 is rotated, the disk tray 4 is moved forward or backward with respect to the chassis 20 between a disc unloading position (outside position) and a disc loaded position (inside position).
When the disc drive 1B is not in use, the disc tray 4 is housed within the casing 10B (at the disk loaded position). In this state, if an eject operation is carried out, the motor 31 is rotated in a prescribed direction, whereby the cam wheel 33 is rotated in a prescribed direction via the rotational speed reduction mechanism 32. This rotation of the cam wheel 33 causes the disc tray 4 to move forward so that the disc tray 4 protrudes to a position (the disc unloading position) outside the casing 10B through the apertures 141, 16a.
In this state, a disc 3 is loaded or put into the disc supporting portion 4a of the disc tray 4, and a loading operation is carried out, whereby the motor 31 is rotated in the opposite direction. This causes the cam wheel 33 to rotate in the opposite direction via the rotational speed reduction mechanism 32. Consequently, the disc tray 4 is moved backwardly, through the apertures 141, 16a, to the disc loaded position. In this way, the loaded optical disc 3 which is placed at a prescribed position on the disc tray 4, that is placed in the disc supporting portion of the disc tray 4 is also transported to the disc loaded position of the main body 2B.
Further, when the cam wheel 33 begins to rotate in the opposite direction, the follower of the base ascending/descending member moves along the cam groove. When the center of the disc 3 supported on the disc tray 4 approaches the central portion of the turntable 26 according to the rotation of the cam wheel 33, the follower and the base ascending/descending member are displaced by the cam wheel 33 so that the front portion of the base 23 pivots about the position of the insulator 29 to displace the front portion of the base 23 from a lower position (descending position) to an upper position (ascending position), whereby the base 23 is placed in a roughly horizontal state.
In this way, the center portion (center hub portion) of the turntable 26 is fitted into a center hole 3a of the optical disc 3. When the center portion of the optical disc is supported on the turntable 26 in this way, the disc damper 38 is magnetically stuck to the turntable 26, thereby the optical disc 3 being held between the turntable 26 and the disc clamp 38. In this state, the spindle motor 25 is operated to rotate the optical disc 3 at a predetermined rotational speed, and then the information recorded on the optical disc 3 is played back using the optical head 27.
If an eject operation is carried out while the rotation of the optical disc 3 is stopped, the order and direction of the operations of each mechanism of the disc drive 1B are carried out in reverse, so that the clamp of the disc 3 is released and then the optical disc 3 placed on the disc tray 4 is ejected.
In recent years, in the field of the disc drives like the disc drive 1B described above, developments are made in order to increase a rotational speed of an optical disc. As a result, disc drives which can rotate an optical disc 3 at high speeds, such as 8 times speed, 12 times speed and the like are developed, but this in turn arises the following problems.
The allowable dimensional error range of the optical disc 3 is determined according to a standard, however such standard was prepared based on the basic rotational speed of the optical disc 3, that is 1 times speed. For this reason, when such an optical disc 3 is driven at a high speed (i.e., a speed which exceeds 1 times speed), vibration is likely to occur due to eccentric rotation caused by the dimensional deviation of the disc and the unbalanced distribution of mass of the optical disc 3 which lie in the range allowed by the standard. Further, more severe vibration will occur in the case where the optical disc 3 was not manufactured according to the standard (i.e., an inferior product).
Further, this type of vibration will also occur if the axes of the optical disc 3 and the turntable 26 are misaligned (i.e., eccentrical).
Unfortunately, an effective countermeasure for suppressing such vibration has not been adopted in such a prior art disc drive 1B described above. In particular, because the main body 2B is fixed to the metal bottom plate 11 and the metal case 14 by means of the screws 17, as described above, vibrations caused by eccentric rotation of the optical disc 3 or the like are easily transmitted from the main body 2B to the metal casing 10B, which causes the casing 10B to resonate and thereby generate noise.
Also, in the case where the disc drive is installed in a personal computer, such vibrations are also transmitted to the personal computer body, thereby creating unfavorable effects to the personal computer. Further, in the other direction, vibrations from the personal computer are also transmitted to the disc drive.
In order to prevent such vibration and noise from being generated, it may be possible to adopt a structure in which a plurality of coil springs are arranged between the lower plate 11 and the main body 2B so that the main body 2B are supported by such coil springs to absorb vibrations, but this in turn creates the following problems.
Namely, although the above-described structure is suited for absorbing vibration in the vertical direction (i.e., the rotational axial direction of the optical disc), most of the vibrations which are generated in the main body 2 occur in the horizontal direction (i.e., the radial direction of the optical disc) because they are caused by the eccentric rotation of the optical disc 3. Therefore, it is not possible to obtain a sufficient vibration absorbing (damping) and noise preventing effects (damping effect). Also, such damping effect is affected by the posture of the disc drive, namely affected by the posture of the PC equipped with the disc drive whether it is placed horizontally or vertically.
Further, because the coil springs in the above structure are provided in the lower portion of the main body 2B, it is not possible to make effective use of the space of such portion.
Furthermore, because the vibration absorbing coil springs need to be fixed from the rear side of the bottom plate 11 with screws, number of parts are increased.
In addition, as stated in the above, the vibration described above is transmitted from the main body 2B to the metal casing 10B (bottom plate 11 and case 14), thereby causing the casing 10B to resonate and generate noise. Such noise is generated due to the reason stated below.
Namely, in the construction of the prior art disc drive, the lower edges of the side walls 14b, 14c and the rear wall 14d of the case 14 are in abutment with the inner surface of the bottom plate 11 directly. However, the lower edges of the side walls 14b, 14c and the rear wall 14d of the case 14 have lower linear precision, since they are formed by carrying out a shearing process on a metal plate using a press machine or the like and no later shape correction such as a precision process or the like is carried out. Therefore, there are many irregularities on the edges and the linear precision of the edges is bad. For this reason, when the case 14 and the bottom plate 11 are assembled, even when these elements are tightly fixed using screw fasteners, the connection between the bottom plate 11 and each lower edge of the side walls 14b, 14c and rear wall 14d is unstable.
In such an unstable connected state, when vibration is transmitted to the casing 10B as described above due to high speed rotation, a rattling is created between the case 14 and the bottom plate 11, thus generating an even greater amount of noise.


A first semiconductor layer is formed in the shape of an island in an active area displaying images on an array substrate. A second semiconductor layer is formed in the shape of an island outside the active area. A first insulating film covers the first and second semiconductor layers. A gate line is formed on the first insulating film and extends in a first direction. The gate line includes a gate electrode crossing the first semiconductor layer and a crossing portion crossing the second semiconductor layer. A second insulating film covers the gate line. A source line is formed on the second insulating film and extends in a second direction. The source line includes a source electrode contacting with the first semiconductor layer. A drain electrode is formed on the second insulating film apart from the source line and contacting with the first semiconductor layer.

A liquid crystal display device is used in various fields of OA equipments such as a personal computer and a television set, taking advantage of the features such as light weight, thin shape, and low power consumption. In recent years, the liquid crystal display device is used also as displays for a portable remote terminal such as a cellular phone and PDA (personal digital assistant), a car navigation equipment, and a game machine.
In the process for manufacturing the liquid crystal display device, the measure against electrostatic is indispensable. For example, there is a possibility that various wirings in an active area, a switching element, etc., are damaged with static electricity generated in the manufacturing process, or invaded from outside. The technique for improving tolerance over such static electricity is examined variously.
For example, a structure equipped with a dummy poly-silicon semiconductor layer in each pixel is proposed different from the poly-silicon semiconductor layer constituting a thin film transistor. A gate electrode line overlaps with the poly-silicon semiconductor layer and the dummy poly-silicon semiconductor layer through a gate insulating film. In such structure, a process until forming the gate electrode line is conducted under following conditions. That is, when a substrate is placed on a table, capacitance formed between the poly-silicon semiconductor layer and the table is set to Ca, capacitance formed between the poly-silicon semiconductor layer and the gate electrode line through the gate insulating film is set to Cb, capacitance formed between the dummy poly-silicon semiconductor layer and the table is set to Cc, capacitance formed between the dummy poly-silicon semiconductor layer and the gate electrode line through the gate insulating film is set to Cd, the dummy poly-silicon semiconductor layer is formed to satisfy an equation: Ca/(Ca+Cb)<Cc/(Cc+Cd). According to the above structure, a voltage impressed to the gate insulating film between the dummy poly-silicon semiconductor layer and the gate electrode line becomes larger rather than the voltage impressed to the gate insulating film between the poly-silicon semiconductor layer and the gate electrode line. For this reason, even if it is a case where electric charges are accumulated to the extent that electrostatic discharge destruction takes place in the gate insulating film between the poly-silicon semiconductor layer and the gate electrode line, and between the dummy poly-silicon semiconductor layer and the gate electrode line, breakdown of the gate insulating film between the dummy poly-silicon semiconductor layer and the gate electrode line generates preferentially, and the thin film transistor equipped with the poly-silicon semiconductor layer is protected.
By the way, in the recent liquid crystal display device, requests for a high definition display and a high aperture ratio has been increasing. Accordingly, it becomes difficult to keep a space to arrange the dummy poly-silicon semiconductor layer in each pixel.


A multi-picture television receiver simultaneously displays side-by-side pictures by first and second video signals of first and second video systems, respectively. The video systems can be PAL, SECAM or NTSC. Discriminating circuitry discriminates the system of the first and second video signals. Controlling circuitry controls a sub-picture video processing circuitry based on the results of the discriminating circuitry, so that, when the number of scanning lines of tie second video signal differs from the number of scanning lines of the first video signal, the main and/or the sub-picture are controlled.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a television receiver provided with a sub-picture function and more particularly to a multi-picture television receiver wherein videos can be displayed by respectively different television standard systems (such as the NTSC, PAL, and SECAM) in a television receiver wherein two pictures of the same size are arranged so as to be able to be displayed.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a television receiver having a function of displaying a main picture and a sub-picture which is separate from the main picture and is a second picture, a television receiver having a function of displaying respectively in substantially the same size a main picture on one side and a sub-picture on the other side by dividing a picture into two parts has been already publicized. Hereafter, for the sake of convenience, the main picture shall refer to a picture which is displayed on the left side of the picture and is on the side out of which a synchronized signal which will be a reference in case the entire picture (both main and sub-pictures) is deflected or the like is taken.
FIG. 17 is a block diagram showing a formation example of a conventional television receiver in which two pictures of the same size are arranged and one of the pictures can be displayed as a main picture and the other can be displayed as a sub-picture.
In FIG. 17, a video signal for a sub-picture is output to a main picture/sub-picture superimposing part 12 through a video/chroma/deflecting processing part (called a V/C/D part hereinafter) 1, A/D converting part 2, data re-arranging part (for writing into a memory) 3, video memory 4, data re-arranging part (for reading out of the memory) 5 and D/A converting part 6. A writing timing generating part 7 adjusting the timing of writing data into the video memory 4 and a reading timing generating part 8 adjusting the timing of reading data, out of the video memory 4 are controlled by a controlling part 9 to adjust said writing timing and reading timing on the basis of a controlling signal from the controlling part 9.
On the other hand, a video signal for a main picture is output to the main picture/sub-picture superimposing part 12 through a V/C/D part 10, A/D converting part 62, video memory 63 and D/A converting part 64. The video memory 63 is controlled in the data writing and reading timing by a memory controlling part 61.
The superimposed video signal is reproduced to be a tri-color signal in a video processing part 13 and is fed to a CRT 14.
The operation of the television receiver wherein two pictures of the same size are arranged so as to be able to be displayed , one of the pictures is made a main picture and the other is made a sub-picture as formed as in the above shall be explained in the following.
The video signal for the sub-picture is video/chroma processed in the V/C/D part 1, is separated and converted to a luminance signal and color difference signal from a composite video signal and is fed to the A/D converting part 2. The V/C/D part 1 separates a synchronizing signal from the composite video signal to produce a horizontal synchronizing signal (WHD) and vertical synchronizing signal (WVD) and feeds them to the writing timing generating part 7.
The writing timing generating part 7 generates an A/D converting timing signal 15, data re-arranging timing signal 16 and data writing timing signal 17 on the basis of the WHD and WVD from the V/C/D part 1 and outputs them respectively to the A/D converting part 2, data re-arranging part (for writing into the memory) 3 and video memory 4.
The A/D converting part 2 converts the video signal for said sub-picture to a digital signal on the basis of the A/D converting timing signal 15 and outputs it to the data re-arranging part (for writing into the memory) 3. The data re-arranging part (for writing into the memory) 3 re-arranges said digital converted sub-picture video signal data rows in the order adapted to writing into the memory on the basis of the data re-arranging timing signal 16 and outputs them to the video memory 4. The video memory 4 writes in the memory the re-arranged sub-picture video signal data rows on the basis of the data writing timing signal 17.
On the other hand, the main picture video signal is video/chroma processed in the V/C/D part 10 so as to be separated and converted to a luminance signal and color difference signal from a composite video signal. The V/C/D part 10 separates a synchronizing signal from the composite video signal to produce a horizontal synchronizing signal (RHD) and vertical synchronizing signal (RVD) and feeds them to the reading timing generating part 8 and memory controlling part 61.
The reading timing generating part 8 generates a data reading timing signal 18, data re-arranging timing signal 19, D/A converting timing signal 20 and main picture/sub-picture switching controlling signal (YS) 11 on the basis of the RHD and RVD from the V/C/D part 10 and outputs them respectively to the video memory 4, data re-arranging part (for reading out of the memory) 5, D/A converting part 6 and main picture/sub-picture superimposing part 12. The sub-picture video data read out of the video memory 4 are read out at a speed about twice as high as the speed in writing and with a delay time (H/2) 1/2 time as long as a horizontal scanning period (1H) so that the sub-picture video may be displayed on half the right side on the CRT. This is because, if it is assumed that the sub-picture video data are written in real-time, in case the sub-picture video data are read out for a time n times (n is a positive real number) as long as the writing time, the sub-picture video will be compressed (or extended) to be 1/n time as large.
In the same manner, the memory controlling part 61 controls the video memory 63 to write and read video data on the basis of the horizontal synchronizing signal (RHD) and vertical synchronizing signal (RVD) from the V/C/D part 10. In case the main picture video data are read out of the video memory 63, the same as in the case of the sub-picture video data, the main picture video data will be read out at a speed about twice as high as the speed in writing so that the main picture may be displayed on half the left side on the CRT.
On the other hand, the re-arranged sub-picture video signal data rows written on the video memory 4 are read out of the video memory 4 on the basis of the data reading timing signal 18 generated by the reading timing generating part 8 and are output to the data re-arranging part (for reading out the memory) 5. The data output from the re-arranging part (for reading out the memory) 5 is re-arranged (returned) to the sub-picture video signal data rows as of before the data are re-arranged by the data re-arranging part (for writing into the memory) 3 on the basis of the data re-arranging timing signal 19 and is output to the D/A converting part 6. The D/A converting part 6 converts (returns) said sub-picture digital video signal to an analogue signal on the basis of the D/A converting timing signal 20 and outputs it to the main picture/sub-picture superimposing part 12.
The main picture/sub-picture superimposing part 12 superimposes said sub-picture video signal converted to an analog signal and said main picture video signal on each other. A superimposed video signal is reproduced to be a tri-color signal through the video processing part 13 and is displayed on the picture of the CRT 14.
The television standard systems adopted today in various countries in the world are largely divided into three kinds of an NTSC system adopted mostly in Japan and America, a PAL system adopted mostly in West Europe and an SECAM system adopted mostly in the old Soviet Union, France and East Europe. Among them, the PAL system and SECAM system are common with each other in respect that the number of scanning lines per frame is 625, whereas in the NTSC system adopted in Japan, USA and so on the number of said scanning lines 525 per frame and is different from the PAL system and SECAM system.
Therefore, in the conventional television receiver having a function of displaying in substantially the same size a main picture on one side of a picture divided into two parts and a sub-picture on the other side, a video of a number of scanning lines different from the number of scanning lines on the main picture has not been able to be displayed on the sub-picture simultaneously with the main picture.


A cable harness system includes a cable having a number of individual conductors, and a connector to enable conductive coupling of the cable to a device. The connector includes an electrically conductive connector body configured for attachment to a chassis of the device. The cable harness system also includes a ground clip to facilitate an electrical ground path between one of the individual conductors and the chassis of the device. The ground clip includes a first portion configured for conductive coupling to the conductor, and a second portion configured for conductive contact with the connector body. The ground clip may be configured as a ground clip lug captured by a captive screw member compressively securing the ground clip lug against the connector body. The ground clip may also be a ground clip bracket configured for frictional engagement with the connector body.

The present invention generally relates to electrically grounded connectors, and more specifically, to a cable harness system, ground clips and a method for electrically grounding a conductor of the cable harness system.
Electric power systems are designed to generate, transmit and distribute electrical energy to loads. In order to accomplish this, power systems generally include a variety of power system elements such as electrical generators, electrical motors, power transformers, power transmission lines, buses and capacitors, to name a few. As a result, power systems typically include protective devices and associated procedures to protect the power system elements from abnormal conditions such as electrical short circuits, overloads, frequency excursions, voltage fluctuations, and the like.
Electric power systems also require communication and computer networks. For example, Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems are included to measure the voltages associated with a power system substation bus (i.e., bus voltages), to measure the current coming into the bus from a power transmission line (i.e., a line current), and to measure the status or position of numerous switches in the substation. The status measurements may include indications of circuit breaker positions and electrical power routing switch positions (e.g., open position, closed position). The SCADA system may also be configured to transmit the current, voltage and switch position measurements to a central control center (CC) via a SCADA communication network for review by an operator. The operator can then make decisions such as closing a circuit breaker to enable additional electric power to a particular load. In that case, a command from the operator delivered via the SCADA communication network results in closure of the circuit breaker.
Such communication and computer networks include the use of cabling, connectors and associated grounding methods. As a result, equipment manufacturers in the power system industry are engaged in manufacturing the cable/connector assemblies supporting the communication and computer networks. One typical method for manufacturing and connecting a cable having a number of conductors (e.g., a multi-conductor cable used with a DB-9 connector) includes stripping and soldering one of the cable conductors, designated as a ground wire, directly to a conductive shell, or body, of an associated connector. Besides being somewhat labor intensive, electrical grounding via use of a solder connection to the connector shell limits the type of conductor shells that can be used. Alternatively, another method for grounding a cable having a number of conductors includes use of metal backshells configured to provide grounding from the wire to the case. Unfortunately, such metal backshells are expensive and often labor intensive and complicated to assemble.

Cable harness system, ground clips and method for electrically grounding a conductor of the cable harness system

Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc.


The high-pressure valve has a valve body defining an elongated longitudinal extension, delimiting a chamber and having an input port, which is defined on its lateral surface, and an output port, which is arranged on a first axial end thereof. The valve body supports, on a second end, a motor and a manual actuation member which can be connected, by virtue of coupling members, to a shaft for the actuation of a first bush accommodated within the chamber. The first bush is provided with actuation elements for the sealed non-rotational movement of adjustment pin which opens a connecting path between the input port and the output port. The adjustment pin engages in a neck located in the chamber and moves toward the output port, in order to open the connecting path, and in the opposite direction, in order to close it. Sensors are furthermore provided for detecting movement of the adjustment pin.

The present invention relates to a high-pressure valve device particularly for pressurized fluids.
In the field of high-pressure high-precision valves for pressurized fluids there are currently various kinds of valves with special characteristics in terms of the type of fluid and the exceptionally fine adjustments required.
Said valves have some shortcomings which, in particularly extreme situations of use, i.e. with fluids having a very high feed pressure and in the presence of very high pressure differences between the input and the output of the valve with a large passage section, create some problems which severely limit their use.
Currently available valves in fact are inadequate from the point of view of adjustment sensitivity, since for example in some solutions the coupling between the actuation screw of the adjustment handwheel and the slider for the opening of the valve is often constituted by a simple split washer. This fact considerably compromises the ability to finely adjust the opening of the valve, especially in the presence of high pressure differences, since a play of a few hundredths of a millimeter can make adjustment insensitive and difficult.
Furthermore, the slider does not move only along the axis of the valve itself, but often, proximate to the closure point, the force applied to the handwheel rotates the slider itself against its seat in the valve body, causing, after a period of use which is normally not very long, leaks inside the valve itself.
Any laminar leakage inside the valve requires specific provisions for its drainage, since there is the risk of losing the hydraulic balance of the valve, if any, thus compromising its functionality.
Other solutions provide for the direct actuation of a slider or shutter having various shapes, provided by means of membrane pneumatic actuators or hydraulic or electric servo controls.
Actuation with pneumatic actuators entails the disadvantage of the considerable surface required by the actuator itself, with consequent considerable increase in the size of the valve. The intrinsic poor adjustment sensitivity can at the most be reduced by adding a positioner which is rigidly coupled to the slider.
Actuation by using hydraulic or electric power to control a slider or shutter using linear hydraulic actuators or electric servomotors coupled by means of gearboxes for the necessary speed reduction of the motor, has an adjustment sensitivity which is extremely difficult to improve, even when high pressure differences are not present.

High-pressure valve device particularly for pressurized fluids


A non-combustion-type flavor inhaler includes a first unit including a battery configured to store electric power, a generator configured to generate an inhalant ingredient from an inhalant ingredient source by electric power provided from the battery, and a controller configured to electrically control the generator; a second unit configured to detachably connect to the first unit; and a resistor configured to conductively connect to the generator by parallel connection or serial connection when the second unit is connected to the first unit. The controller is configured to detect a connection between the first unit and the second unit based on a difference between an electric resistance value (R1) of the generator and a combined resistance value (Rc) of the generator and the resistor.

Instead of cigarettes, non-combustion-type flavor inhalers for tasting flavors without combustion flavor sources like tobacco have been proposed. Patent Literature 1 discloses a non-combustion-type flavor inhaler that includes a main body unit and a capsule unit detachably connected to the main body unit. The main body unit includes an aerosol generation source that generates aerosol, an atomization unit that atomizes the aerosol generation source without combustion, and an electric power source that supplies electric power to the atomization unit. The capsule unit includes a flavor source that generates a flavor to be inhaled by a user.

Non-combustion-type flavor inhaler, method, program, and recording medium


A linear recliner assembly for use with a vehicle seat assembly. The vehicle seat assembly has a seat cushion and a seat back pivotally mounted to the seat cushion for forward and rearward reclining movement. The linear recliner assembly has a housing mounted to the seat cushion. An actuating rod is pivotally connected to the seat back at a first end thereof and slidably mounted with the housing at an opposite end thereof. The actuating rod is biased to urge the seat back to the forward reclining movement. A pivotally mounted pawl is biased into pivotal engagement with the actuating rod. A rotatable camming member engages the pawl in a camming relationship so as to move the pawl between a releasably engaged position engaging the actuating rod preventing reclining movement and a released position disengaging the actuating rod mechanism allowing reclining movement. The pawl engages the actuating rod such that when a force applied to the seat back the force is transmitted to the seat cushion through the camming member.

In many conventional reclining vehicle seats, the seat back is pivotally mounted for forward and rearward reclining movement by virtue of a linear recliner assembly which is connected to the seat. The typical linear recliner assembly, as exemplified in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,898,424 and 5,718,482, has a housing mounted to the side of the seat and an actuating rod mounted for linear movement within the housing and connected to a lower portion of the seat back. A locking mechanism is mounted within the housing and engages the actuating rod to prevent reclining movement of the seat back.
Under certain conditions, such as a collision, a substantial force may be applied to the seat back so as to result in a longitudinally directed force being applied to the actuating rod and transmitted to the seat through the pivot pin of the locking mechanism. The pivot pin is thus required to be of high strength material, with the attendant increased costs, in order to resist such forces. Thus, there exists a need to provide a recliner assembly which avoids transferring forces through a single pivot pin.


An area of an extraneous substance (e.g. area of metal or the like) in images (pre-interpolation projection data in the embodiment) of the extraneous substance (e.g. high-density substance such as metal) extracted and separated by extraction separation in step S1 is interpolated by area interpolation in step S2. Therefore, artifacts can be reduced, while maintaining high spatial resolution, if tomographic images (first tomographic images in the embodiment) are generated by first tomographic image generation in step S3 from the interpolation images interpolated and generated (post-interpolating projection data in the embodiment).

As a conventional radiation tomographic image generating apparatus, there is an X-ray tomographic apparatus, for example. This X-ray tomographic apparatus, as shown in FIG. 7, has an X-ray tube 101 and an X-ray detector 102 which are arranged opposite each other across an inspection object M, and are interlocked such that, synchronously with parallel translation of the X-ray tube 101 along the direction of body axis z which is the longitudinal direction of the inspection object M, the X-ray detector 102 moves parallel in a direction opposite to the parallel translation of the X-ray tube 101. Radiography is conducted continuously, while changing the X-ray emission angle of the X-ray tube 101 to the inspection object M, so that an arbitrary point on a particular sectional plane (reference plane) of the inspection object M will always be in the same position on the X-ray detector 102. With the X-ray tomographic apparatus, apart from such parallel translation (linear scan), various scanning tracks are realized, such as arcuate movement (circular scan) accompanying rotation (about an axis in a shorter direction perpendicular to the body axis z and a horizontal plane) of a C-arm (not shown) holding the X-ray tube 101 and X-ray detector 102 as shown in FIG. 8.
The X-ray tomographic apparatus is also called "Tomosynthesis". To generate tomographic images with the tomographic X-ray apparatus, there are a reconstruction technique called "Shift Addition method" which carries out adding operations while shifting, each by a suitable amount, a plurality of projection data (radiological images) acquired by X-ray beams emitted from different directions (projection angles) to an inspection object, and a reconstruction technique called "Filtered Back Projection (FBP) method" (also called "Filter-Corrected Back Projection method") as used in an X-ray CT (Computed Tomography) apparatus for generating tomographic images by revolving an X-ray tube and an X-ray detector about the body axis of an inspection object (see Nonpatent Document 1, for example).
Take a human body as an example of inspection object, there is a substance that forms the living body as the substance forming an area of interest in the inspection object. As substances of high density compared with this substance forming the living body, there are a metallic artificial joint, external fixator, dental stuffing, and so on. These substances of high density are formed of metal or the like, and the substances of high density compared with living body tissue absorb radiation. In addition, where substances of lower density compared with the substance forming the living body are included, the substances of low density compared with living body tissue transmit radiation.

Radiation tomographic image generating method, and radiation tomographic image generating program