The present invention is a method and system to provide a face-based automatic gender recognition system that utilizes localized facial features and hairstyles of humans. Given a human face detected from a face detector, it is accurately localized to facilitate the facial/hair feature detection and localization. Facial features are more finely localized using the geometrically distributed learning machines. Then the position, size, and appearance information of the facial features are extracted. The facial feature localization essentially decouples geometric and appearance information about facial features, so that a more explicit comparison can be made at the recognition stage. The hairstyle features that possess useful gender information are also extracted based on the hair region segmented, using the color discriminant analysis and the estimated geometry of the face. The gender-sensitive feature vector, made up from the extracted facial and hairstyle features, is fed to the gender recognition machines that have been trained using the same kind of gender-sensitive feature vectors of gallery images.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is a method and system to provide a face-based automatic gender recognition system that utilizes automatically decoupled facial feature geometry and appearance information, and automatically extracted hairstyle of humans.
2. Background of the Invention
Automatic gender recognition using images has a wide range of applications such as security, marketing, and computer user interface. Online applications, such as computer user interface, or gender targeted advertisements, especially demand highly accurate gender recognition capabilities.
Traditional gender recognition methods make use of holistic facial appearance and/or bodily features that are specific to certain dress codes or ethnic groups. The use of holistic facial appearance for gender recognition fits well into the framework of machine learning-based classification, because facial appearance has common structure across the human population to be compared against each other, and at the same time provides useful appearance information to differentiate gender. It is well known in the pattern analysis community that one can achieve higher recognition accuracy when the patterns are aligned more accurately. In general, when the overall patterns are aligned, the learning machine does a better job of identifying the fine-level features necessary for identifying the difference between classes.
For the gender recognition problem, the manner through which the human brain processes the visual information from a human face to determine gender is not completely understood. However, there are certain features that are known to contribute more to the task of gender recognition; studies revealed that certain parts of the face or facial features provide more decisive image information for gender recognition. For example, there is a general consensus that differences in the size and shape between male eyebrows and female eyebrows exist.
On the other hand, studies have revealed that using only facial image for gender recognition has limitations; even gender recognition by humans using only facial images is shown to have such limitations. Humans make use of other image cues, such as hairstyles, body shape, and dress codes, for determining the gender.
The present invention proposes a method that makes use of both the parts-based image features and global geometry-based features for an accurate recognition of gender. Both the global-level face localization method and the feature-level localization method have been designed as crucial components of the approach. The face localization method aligns the global shapes of the faces. It also provides approximate facial feature locations that provide a basis for more refined facial feature localization. The appearance of the localized facial features are then extracted, along with the global facial geometry features, to form a feature vector to effectively represent the gender-sensitive image feature of a given face. The present invention also extracts and makes use of non-facial features to be added to the gender-sensitive feature vector. The hairstyle is segmented out from facial images based on an involved analysis: the facial skin and hair tone pixels are sampled based on the accurate localization of faces and on the skin-hair tone discriminant analysis, using a large number of skin tone and hair tone samples. The actual recognition task is carried out by training a learning machine on the collected gender-sensitive feature vectors. The face localization and facial feature localization both involve training images annotated with facial feature locations; the face localization assumes roughly detected facial regions from the face detection step, and facial feature localization assumes corrected facial images using face localization. Both sets of training data are prepared based on these assumptions.
There have been prior attempts for detecting human faces in still images or in videos.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,829,384 of Schneiderman, et al. (hereinafter Schneiderman) disclosed an object finder program for detecting the presence of a three-dimensional object in a two-dimensional image containing a two-dimensional representation of the three-dimensional object. The object finder uses the wavelet transform of the input two-dimensional image for object detection. A preselected number of view-based detectors are trained on sample images prior to performing the detection on an unknown image. These detectors then operate on the given input image and compute a quantized wavelet transform for the entire input image. Object detection then proceeds with a sampling of the quantized wavelet coefficients at different image window locations on the input image, and efficient look-up of precomputed log-likelihood tables to determine object presence. The object finder's coarse-to-fine object detection strategy coupled with exhaustive object search across different positions and scales results in an efficient and accurate object detection scheme.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,031,499 of Viola, et al. (hereinafter Viola) disclosed an object detection system for detecting instances of an object in a digital image using an image integrator and an object detector, which includes a classifier (classification function) and an image scanner. The image integrator receives an input image and calculates an integral image representation of the input image. The image scanner scans the image in same sized subwindows. The object detector uses a cascade of homogeneous classification functions or classifiers to classify the subwindows as to whether each subwindow is likely to contain an instance of the object. Each classifier evaluates one or more features of the object to determine the presence of such features in a subwindow that would indicate the likelihood of an instance of the object in the subwindow.
The disclosed method assumes that a stream of detected faces are fed to the system, where face detection is performed by a machine learning based face detection method, similar to the method disclosed in Viola and Schneiderman.
There have been prior attempts for detecting and localizing facial features from facial images for the purpose of further facial image analysis.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,781,650 of Lobo, et al. (hereinafter Lobo) disclosed a method for automatically finding facial images of a human face in a digital image, and classifying the age of the person into an age category. Step 1 of the process is to find facial features of the digital image encompassing the chin, sides of the face, and the virtual top of the head, eyes, mouth and nose of the image. Step 2 is to compute the facial feature ratios of the facial features found in Step 1. Step 3 is to compute a wrinkle analysis of the image. Step 4 is to combine the previous two steps to categorize the age of the facial image. The invention can locate and detect facial images for age classification from digital camera images and computerized generated images.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,852,669 of Eleftheriadis, et al. (hereinafter Eleftheriadis) disclosed a method that responds to a video signal representing a succession of frames, where at least one of the frames corresponds to an image of an object, to detect at least a region of the object. The method includes a processor for processing the video signal to detect at least the region of the object characterized by at least a portion of a closed curve and to generate a plurality of parameters associated with the closed curve for use in coding the video signal.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,219,639 of Bakis, et al. (hereinafter Bakis) disclosed a method for recognizing an individual based on attributes associated with the individual comprising the steps of: pre-storing at least two distinctive attributes of the individual during at least one enrollment session; contemporaneously extracting the at least two distinctive attributes from the individual during a common recognition session; segmenting the pre-stored attributes and the extracted attributes according to a sequence of segmentation units; indexing the segmented pre-stored and extracted attributes so that the segmented pre-stored and extracted attributes corresponding to an identical segmentation unit in the sequence of segmentation units are associated to an identical index; and respectively comparing the segmented pre-stored and extracted attributes associated to the identical index to each other to recognize the individual.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,058,209 of Chen, et al. (hereinafter Chen) disclosed a digital image processing method that detects facial features in a digital image. This method includes the steps of detecting iris pixels in the image, clustering the iris pixels, and selecting at least one of the following schemes to identify eye positions: applying geometric reasoning to detect eye positions using the iris pixel clusters; applying a summation of squared difference method using the iris pixel clusters to detect eye positions; and applying a summation of squared difference method to detect eye positions from the pixels in the image. The method applied to identify eye positions is selected on the basis of the number of iris pixel clusters, and the facial features are located using the identified eye positions.
U.S. Pat. Appl. Pub. No. 2005/0041867 of Loy, et al. (hereinafter Loy) disclosed a method of utilizing a computer system to automatically detect the location of a face within a series of images, the method comprising the steps of: detecting eye like regions within the series of images; utilizing the eye like regions to extract potential face regions within the series of images; enhancing the facial features in the extracted potential face regions; classifying the features; and verifying the face topology within the potential face regions.
In Lobo, the facial feature detection is performed under close range high-resolution frontal face images to extract features for age classification. In Eleftheriadis, the face facial feature detection is used for image compression, by employing edge and model-based scheme. In Bakis, the lip contour registration is performed for the purpose of multi-modal speaker recognition or verification. In Chen, eyes are detected and localized in a human face, based on the iris color signature and the cluster analysis of the iris color pixels. In Loy, eye candidates are detected first using geometric model of eye images. Based on the eye candidate locations, the facial region is detected, and other facial regions are detected and verified using geometric reasoning (facial features topology).
In all of the mentioned prior inventions, either high resolution facial images or good quality color facial images are required to reliably detect facial features. The success of these approaches also depends on successful face detection or initial (mostly eyes) features detection. In the proposed invention, the robust facial localization based on a large number of samples is performed after machine learning-based face detection. The facial features are accurately localized within already roughly localized facial feature windows, again using learning machines trained to localize only each given facial feature. The present method does not require high-resolution images or color information; it works with either gray-level or color images, and works under various imaging conditions due to the training with a large number of images taken under various imaging conditions.
There have been prior attempts for analyzing the skin tone of humans for the purpose of segmenting out facial or skin regions.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,488,429 of Kojima, et al. (hereinafter Kojima) disclosed a method where a flesh-tone area is detected based on color-difference and luminance signals constituting video signals, and luminance correction and color correction. Aperture corrections are performed only on the flesh-tone area or a human face area identified in the flesh-tone area. The setting of a focus area or the setting of a photometric area for iris control, automatic gain control, automatic shutter control, etc., in a video camera, is performed with respect to the flesh-tone area or the human face area. Furthermore, based on the color-difference and luminance signals constituting the video signals, a background area is detected, and the video signals are divided into components representing a background area and components representing an object area. An image signal of a desired hue or a still image is superimposed on the detected background area, or special processing is performed on the video signals representing the object area other than the detected background area.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,711,286 of Chen, et al. (hereinafter Chen-1) disclosed a computer vision/image processing method of removing blond hair color pixels in digital image skin detection for a variety of imaging related applications, such as redeye defects detection. It employs a combination of skin detectors operating in a generalized RGB space in combination with a hue space derived from the original image space to detect skin pixels and blond hair pixels within the skin pixels.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,690,822 of Chen, et al. (hereinafter Chen-2) disclosed a method for detecting skin color in a digital image having pixels in an RGB color space. The method generally includes the steps of performing statistical analysis of the digital color image to determine the mean RGB color values; then, if the mean value of any one of the colors is below a predetermined threshold, applying a transformation to the digital image to move skin colors in the image toward a predetermined region of the color space; and employing the transformed space to locate the skin color pixels in the digital color image. More specifically, if the mean value of any one of the colors is below a predetermined threshold, a non-linear transformation is applied to the digital image to move skin colors in the image toward a predetermined region of the color space. Then, depending on the preceding step, either the digital image or the transformed digital image is converted from the RGB space to a generalized RGB space to produce a gRGB digital image; skin color pixels are detected.
U.S. Pat. Appl. Pub. No. 2006/0066912 of Kagaya (hereinafter Kagaya) disclosed a method for skin tone detection, where skin tone image portion contained in an image is detected based upon the shape of the image of a human face. An average value of each of RGB values of pixels that constitute the skin tone image portion detected is calculated. If the distance between a skin tone-blackbody locus and a value that is the result of converting the RGB values obtained by multiplying the average value by prescribed coefficients is less than a prescribed value, these coefficients are adopted as coefficients for multiplying the RGB values of each pixel constituting the image. By using a value that is the result of conversion to a chromaticity value, the RGB values obtained by multiplying the RGB values of each of the pixels constituting the image by the prescribed coefficients, those pixels of the image that have values belonging to a zone in the vicinity of a point on a gray-blackbody locus that corresponds to a light-source color temperature estimated based upon the skin tone-blackbody locus are treated as gray candidate pixels.
Kojima, Chen-1, Chen-2, and Kagaya all aim to separate out the skin tone region in color space using various color space and color space transforms. We use a similar scheme to detect skin tone, utilizing a combination of both linear and nonlinear mapping in color space. In Chen-1, the method explicitly uses hue-based blonde hair tone removal, to segment facial the skin tone region that doesn't have the blonde hair region. In the present invention, the separation of skin tone and hair tone (which include all human hair tones, not just blonde) is carried out using the linear discriminant analysis on sampled skin and hair tones.
There have been prior attempts for recognizing the gender (or more generally, demographics) category of a person by processing facial images.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,990,217 of Moghaddam, et al. (hereinafter Moghaddam) disclosed a method to employ Support Vector Machines (SVMs) to classify images of faces according to gender, by training the images, including images of male and female faces; determining a plurality of support vectors from the training images for identifying a hyperplane for the gender decision; and reducing the resolution of the training images and the test image by subsampling before supplying the images to the Support Vector Machine.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/972,316 of Agrawal, et al. (hereinafter Agrawal) disclosed a system and method for automatically extracting the demographic information from images. The system detects the face in an image, locates different components, extracts component features, and then classifies the components to identify the age, gender, or ethnicity of the person(s) in the image. Using components for demographic classification gives better results as compared to currently known techniques. Moreover, the described system and technique can be used to extract demographic information in a more robust manner than currently known methods in environments where a high degree of variability in size, shape, color, texture, pose, and occlusion exists. This invention also performs classifier fusion using Data Level fusion and Multi-level classification for fusing results of various component demographic classifiers. Besides use as an automated data collection system wherein, given the necessary facial information as the data, the demographic category of the person is determined automatically, the system could also be used for the targeting of advertisements, surveillance, human computer interaction, security enhancements, immersive computer games, and improving user interfaces based on demographic information.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/811,614 of Moon, et al. (hereinafter Moon) disclosed a face-based automatic demographics classification system that is robust to pose changes of the target faces and to accidental scene variables, such as noise, lighting, and occlusion, by using a pose-independent facial image representation which is comprised of multiple pose-dependent facial appearance models. Given a sequence of people's faces in a scene, the two-dimensional variations, such as position error, size, and in-plane orientation, are estimated and corrected using a novel machine learning based method. The system also estimates the three-dimensional pose of the people, using a conceptually similar machine learning based approach. Then the face tracking module keeps the identity of the person using geometric and appearance cues of the person, where multiple appearance models are built based on the poses of the faces. The separate processing of each pose makes the appearance model building more accurate so that the tracking performance becomes more accurate. Each separately built pose-dependent facial appearance model is fed to the demographics classifier, which is again trained using only the faces having the corresponding pose. The classification scores from the set of pose-dependent classifiers are aggregated to determine the final face category, such as gender, age, and ethnicity of the person, etc.
"A Method of Gender Classification by Integrating Facial, Hairstyle, and Clothing Images," in the Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Pattern Recognition, 2004, by Ueki, et al. (hereinafter Ueki) disclosed a method of gender classification by integrating facial, hairstyle, and clothing images. Initially, input images are separated into facial, hairstyle and clothing regions, and independently learned PCAs and GMMs based on thousands of sample images are applied to each region. The classification results are then integrated into a single score using some known priors based on the Bayes rule. Experimental results showed that our integration strategy significantly reduced the error rate in gender classification compared with the conventional facial only approach.
The approach by Moghaddam addresses the problem of gender recognition by training an SVM using a large number of image instances to make use of image features that distinguish male from female. However, it uses a holistic image, which implicitly contains both the shape and geometric features, while the present invention decouples the shape and geometry information so that the separated information can be compared explicitly. In Agrawal, the gender recognition (or demographics recognition in general) is based on comparing individual features, consisting of the indexed and localized feature images and their relative positions. The present invention takes very similar approaches. However, Agrawal does not suggest any automated means for detecting and localizing facial features. The present invention makes use of both automatic face localization and automatic facial feature localization so that the whole process of face detection, localization, facial feature detection and localization, and feature extraction can be performed without any human intervention. On the other hand, the present invention makes use of hairstyle information, which provides very a useful clue for gender recognition, also by performing automated hair-skin separation based on color space analysis. In Moon, a series of geometric estimation for face localization, three-dimensional facial pose estimation, and face tracking and appearance model building are performed to conduct pose-independent demographics classification; the approach focuses more on dealing with pose and depends on using a holistic facial appearance model. While the present invention performs face localization similar to Moon, it also performs explicit facial feature localization to decouple facial feature geometry and facial feature appearance to achieve accurate gender recognition. In Ueki, the gender-specific dress code and hairstyle are exploited for gender recognition, in addition to facial image features. The use of hair features is shared by the present invention. However, in Ueki, the hairstyle extraction is simplified and based on gray-level images due to the dark complexion of the specific ethnicity group, while in the present invention the hair region segmentation can deal with any kinds of skin tone and hair color.
In summary, the present invention provides a fully automatic face localization, facial feature localization, and feature extraction approach, for accurate facial feature-based gender recognition, unlike some of the approaches that use manually extracted features. The facial feature localization approach is different from the prior approach in that it uses multiple learning machines, each tuned to specific geometry of facial features, and can robustly detect and localize facial features under harsh imaging conditions. The basic approach is different from most demographics classification approaches in that the recognition is based on separate geometric and appearance features. It also makes use of automatically extracted hairstyle information using skin tone-hair tone discriminant analysis, which is very specific to gender recognition.

Method and system for robust human gender recognition using facial feature localization


An autostereoscopic lenticular screen has a lenticular screen held in juxtaposition with a display surface. The lenticular screen has lenticules disposed on one side thereof and a smooth surface on the other side thereof. In one aspect of the invention, a closed chamber is formed over the lenticules. In order to deactivate the refractive properties of the lenticular screen, and thereby view the display in a planar mode, an optically clear fluid, such as a fluoropolymer, is introduced into at least a portion of the closed chamber. In order to activate the refractive properties of the lenticular screen, and thereby view the display in a stereoscopic mode, the optically clear fluid is removed from the closed chamber. In a particularly preferred arrangement, the lenticular screen is oriented such that the lenticules face inwardly toward the display screen, and the smooth surface of the lenticular screen is coated with an antireflective material.

Lenticular screens have long been a means to provide the user with an autostereoscopic display allowing each eye to see a different perspective. The idea of using a corduroy-like lenticular screen and an interdigitated stereo pair was first enunciated in 1915 by Hess in U.S. Pat. No. 1,128,979, and there has been much art disclosed in the field since Hess.
Indeed, the idea of using lenticular screens with inward facing lenticules, which we employ in this disclosure, has been applied for years in the manufacture of rear projection television sets. It is the manner in which we use this configuration and improve upon it that leads to great improvements in image quality as will be described below.
When viewing a lenticular autostereoscopic display, the user does not wish to be aware of the structure or the presence of the screen. The user is concerned with seeing the image and does not wish to be subjected to any distraction. Such distractions are caused by the visibility of the lenticular screen structure itself. This is to some extent manifested by the visibility of the straight-line boundaries between lenticules, which appear to the eye as if they are (more or less) vertical going rulings. The finer the pitch of the screen, the less obtrusive this "virtual" ruling effect, but in some cases the pitch of the screen must remain large, and in all cases the problems of reflections from the surface remain, as described next.
With the lenticules facing outward, as is typical, the user is aware of the "ruling" structure as well as a considerable amount of reflection of ambient light. Annoying reflections occur at the surface of the lenticular screen. This phenomenon arises from the (more or less) horizontal refractive nature of the corduroy-like lenticular columns that create a myriad of reflections spreading across the surface of the screen.
These reflections interfere with the intelligibility of the displayed image as well as detract from the enjoyment of viewing the display. An anti-reflection (AR) coating can be difficult to apply to a surface made up of miniature lenticules. AR coatings are usually coated on smooth and continuous surfaces, and not on the corduroy-like surface of the lenticular screen.
Another problem related to the unimpaired viewing and even the intelligibility of the display has to do with the need to switch between planar and stereo states. For certain applications, especially desktop applications, the user of a lenticular autostereoscopic display may well wish to work on a word processing application or e-mail at one moment, and the next he or she may wish to see a stereoscopic image. It has been observed and understood that an application consisting of alpha numerics can become unintelligible when viewed through a lenticular screen because of its refractive properties.
If one wishes to display information on this autostereo device, the information must be formatted to accommodate the properties of the lenticular screen. In such a case, the image must be dissected into columns and within such columns, image stripes, or the user will observe an image that is garbled and unintelligible. The information, specifically alphanumerics of small to normal font size, or task bars and dialogue boxes and the like, will be difficult for the user to read. In order to cure this viewing problem, the user could remove the lenticular screen and then replace it when it is time to display stereo formatted information.
For this reason, it would be desirable to be able to "deactivate" or "neutralize" the refractive properties of the lenticular screen. One approach, as mentioned above, is to remove the screen entirely when viewing in the planar mode. But this can be cumbersome and might not meet with favor on the part of users. In addition, there is an alignment problem that might be difficult to solve since the juxtaposition of the lenticular screen and the display screen needs to be accomplished with extreme precision. But even if the problem can be solved with some pin registration system, or some other means of calibration, we are left with a solution to the problem that is intrinsically cumbersome. Even the embodiment disclosed by Eichenlaub in U.S. Pat. No. 5,500,765, clever as it is, requires the addition or removal of a lenticular screen with negatively-shaped lenticules, the purpose of which is to neutralize the refractive properties of an in-place lenticular screen.
The present disclosure takes advantage of inward facing lenticules that provide the same refractive properties as that of a lenticular screen with outwardly facing lenticules. By having the lenticules face inwardly toward the display screen, we are able to achieve a lenticular autostereoscopic display with greater clarity in the stereo mode, and thus with an enhanced sensation of image quality and depth. Inward facing lenticules makes the boundary "virtual" ruling effect disappear and allows the provision of a standard quality AR coating to the outwardly facing flat surface.
We also describe means to neutralize the refractive properties of the screen by automatic means rather than by cumbersome efforts on the part of the user. By automatic, we mean that with the push of a button, the user will be able to select between autostereo and stereo modes with optimized optical properties and clarity of image. Even better, with the change of content from stereo to planar, the unit will automatically activate or deactivate the lenticules' refractive properties.


Systems and methods for transcoding media content are disclosed. In some embodiments, the method includes obtaining a transcoded media content that is transcoded from an uploaded media content. The method includes determining a plurality of degradation metric values corresponding to the transcoded media content based on the uploaded media content and the transcoded media content, each degradation metric value corresponding to a different degradation metric type. The method includes mapping each degradation metric value to a respective calibrated score to obtain a plurality of calibrated scores. The method includes determining an aggregated quality score of the transcoded media content based on the plurality of calibrated scores and an exponential weighting function. The exponential weighting function exponentiates each of the calibrated scores by a respective weighting exponent and aggregates the exponentiated calibrated scores. The method includes selectively reencoding the transcoded media content based on the aggregated quality score.

In digital video and audio delivery, as in many different industries and fields of study, it is a challenge to define quantitative metrics that robustly characterize qualitative properties. It is even more problematic when the qualitative properties are inherently subjective or dependent on human perception. For example, it is difficult to automate a process that can quantify whether the quality of an encoded video is good, not good, great, or unwatchable. Quantitative metrics, however, are valuable because they enable more objective analysis and scientific reasoning.
In operating a large-scale media processing infrastructure (e.g., broadcast TV, video streaming services, online music services, and cloud personal storage of media content), the quality of an encoded media content is a very important metric. Because of the amount of content being handled by these systems, it is necessary to automate the processes that monitor, verify, and even improve media content quality. At the heart of this challenge is the task of defining appropriate quantitative metrics that give meaningful indications about the quality of video and audio processing. In practice, however, these metrics may provide limited ways to meaningfully interpret their numerical values. Furthermore, these metrics are usually only meaningful when compared to values assigned to other media contents to determine which is better. It is difficult, however, to determine the magnitude of how much better a particular media content is.
Furthermore, quality metrics usually make tradeoffs about how much "coverage" they provide within the domain of all possible audio and video content. Some metrics only do well on a subset of the domain (e.g., focusing on speech quality instead of general audio quality), while other metrics may generalize better to any media content but provide only a very specific measurement that cannot be interpreted as an overall quality measurement. Good coverage of a metric matters because different compressed videos may have different types of errors that are attributed to different root causes and that manifest in different manners. Metrics that focus only on one such root cause cannot characterize all these different aspects of "quality." Furthermore, most metrics for audio and video quality are defined by modeling what makes audio and video be considered "good" or high quality. However, this approach ignores what causes audio and video quality to be considered "bad" or low quality. As a result, existing metrics do a better job of characterizing slight differences in quality only when quality is already high, but they do not do as well when it comes to characterizing differences in quality when the quality is poor.

Transcoding media content using an aggregated quality score


A reading unit provided with an optical system mounted on a recording apparatus to read a source document includes a housing having the optical system in it, a light transmitting portion arranged on the outer surface of the housing of the reading unit in order to guide the light outside the reading unit into the optical system of the reading unit, and a protection member to cover the outer side of the light transmitting portion for opening and closing such portion freely. With the structure thus arranged, the reading unit is protected from ink mist and other particles created by the recording apparatus that may contaminate the reading unit, hence preventing the accuracy of reading signals from being lowered when reading is performed by means of this reading unit.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a reading unit detachably mountable on a recording apparatus, and a recording apparatus capable of mounting such reading unit on it.
2. Related Background Art
As a reading unit detachably mountable on a printing apparatus, there are conventionally a serial reading unit of the type that can be exchanged with a recording head mounted on the carriage of a printing apparatus, and a line reading unit that can be detachably mounted.
For the serial reading unit exchangeable with the recording head, no shutter mechanism is provided to protect the lens front of the optical reading system. Also, for the system that detachably mounts the line reading unit, no shutter of closing and opening type is provided to protect the lens and the light source, but a transparent plate or the like is arranged in front of the lens and the light source instead of the shutter.
The conventional detachable reading unit described above may often be located in a position other than the one regularly arranged for mounting because the unit should be made detachable. In this case, the front part of the lens is liable to collide with some other parts unexpectedly because no shutter mechanism is provided to protect the lens front. As a result, the image signals may sometimes become inaccurate for reading.
Also, for the detachable line reading unit having the transparent plate arranged to protect the lens and the light source, the transparent protection plate itself is damaged in some cases. If the palate is damaged, the image signals become inaccurate as in the case described above.
Further, in any one of the cases described above, the image signals may sometimes become inaccurate due to dust or other particles adhering to the lens or the transparent plate.
Also, an image reading device serving as a reading unit is generally provided with a plurality of light emitting elements and photodetecting elements. The light emitted from the light emitting elements illuminates the surface of a source document through light emitting fibers or the like, and then, the reflected light from the source document are received by the photodetecting elements through the light detecting fibers or the like, thus reading the source document.
Then, a control is arranged to determine the density of a source document, the so-called gradation, depending on the intensities of the light received by the photodetecting elements. Also, there is a method called binary control, which decides just on whether the representation is in black or in white without discriminating them finely in accordance with the densities.
As described above, it is necessary to determine the white portion on a source document as white and the black portion as black in accordance with the intensity of light received by the photodetecting elements, but there are some cases where the intensity of received light varies due to the variation or other causes that may exist among pluralities of light emitting elements and photodetecting elements to be used. If the intensity of received light should change, there is a possibility that white is read as black, and black as white. Then the contents that have been read are not the same as those of the source document.
Therefore, it is generally practiced that the white reference, called a white standard, whose reflective density is predetermined, is read in order to perform reading at a constant level at all times even if there are variations among the light emitting and photodetecting elements to be used, and that correction is made by the application of the white standard, thus enabling the intensity of the received light of the photodetecting elements to be recognizable as equal to that of the white standard.
Meanwhile, as recording methods adopted by recording apparatuses, there are, among others, ink jet method and wire-dot method, besides the thermal transfer method. Here, the ink jet method is such that recording is made by the recording head that does not touch the recording medium. With this method, a high speed recording is possible in high precision at lower noises. Therefore, the ink jet method is more in demand rapidly in recent years.
The ink jet recording method is structured to discharge ink droplets from the nozzles of the recording head for recording, and when the recording is at rest, the cap, which will be described later, is closely in contact with the surface of the recording head in order to prevent the nozzle unit of the recording head from being dried.
The recording head and the recording medium are arranged with a specific gap. At the time of recording, the ink droplets discharged from the nozzles of the recording head are caused to fly in the air in such specific gap. Images are formed when such ink droplets arrive at the recording medium.
Also, even at the time of recording, if a specific period of time elapses, while waiting for the data to be received, so that there is no discharge even after such period of time, the recording head is driven to move to the capping position. Then, predischarge is executed to prevent the nozzles of the recording head from being dried by discharging ink droplets into the cap. In this case, should the cap abut upon the recording head, the position of the recording head varies. This variation may disturb images when the next recording is performed. Therefore, the cap is arranged at a location away from the recording head at a certain distance. The predischarge is conducted toward the inside of the cap under such circumstance. As a result, the ink droplets fly in the air in this case, too, as at the time of recording.
It is ideal to discharge each of the ink droplets from the recording head in one mass. Actually, however, the discharged ink droplet may often be divided into one main droplet for the formation of an image on a recording medium, and a plurality of small ink droplets called ink mist, which is not related to the formation of any images.
The flying direction of the mist described above does not necessarily agree with that of the main droplet. Also, if the ink droplet is extremely small, the mist is caused to float in the recording apparatus to adhere to various parts in the interior of the apparatus.
Also, there are some cases where a main droplet is caused to bounce up the moment it arrives at a recording medium or the cap described earlier, and becomes floating mist, too.
Therefore, when an image reading device is integrally arranged on a carriage as described above, the reading unit of such image reading device is contaminated by the aforesaid mist, making it impossible to carry on image reading accurately.

Reading unit and recording apparatus capable of mounting such reading unit thereon


A composite conductive material includes at least graphene-like exfoliated from a graphite-based graphite carbon material and a conductive material dispersed in a base material. The graphite-based carbon material has a rhombohedral graphite layer (3R) and a hexagonal graphite layer (2H), wherein a Rate (3R) of the rhombohedral graphite layer (3R) and the hexagonal graphite layer (2H), based on an X-ray diffraction method, which is defined by following Equation 1 is 31% or more:Rate(3R)=P3/(P3+P4)×100  (Equation 1)wherein                P3 is a peak intensity of a (101) plane of the rhombohedral graphite layer (3R) based on the X-ray diffraction method, and        P4 is a peak intensity of a (101) plane of the hexagonal graphite layer (2H) based on the X-ray diffraction method.

In recent years, addition of various nanomaterials has been studied for purposes of downsizing and weight saving in various fields. In particular, for problems of environments or resources, carbon materials such as graphene, CNT and fullerene have attracted attention as nonmetal nanomaterials. For example, a lithium-ion battery currently put to practical use has been improved in its capacity owing to an improvement of the active material itself. However, the capacity is significantly lower than its theoretical capacity, and further improvement has been desired.
Regarding this matter, while acetylene black has been conventionally used as a conductive assistant for lithium-ion batteries, novel high conductive materials such as a carbon nanofiber (VGCF (vapor grown carbon fiber): registered trademark) manufactured by Showa Denko K. K. have been studied in recent years to further improve electrical conductivity (Patent Literature 1: JP-A-2013-77475).
Further, a method of improving cycle characteristics (repetition performance) of a battery by directly coating a positive electrode active material with an electrical conductor and a method of producing a high-capacity and high-output lithium-ion battery by focusing attention on ion conductivity have been studied. (Patent Literature 2: JP-T-2013-513904), (Patent Literature 3: WO 2014/115669)
Furthermore, nanosizing of an active material itself for a lithium-ion battery has been also studied in recent years. (Non-Patent Literature 5)

Composite conductive material, power storage device, conductive dispersion, conductive device, conductive composite and thermally conductive composite


A bicycle saddle and handlebar height adjustment device comprising a tubular element (5) provided with means (2) for its connection to said saddle (3) and presenting a portion (4) to cooperate with a support element (6, 7) for said tubular element, said support element being associated with locking means (8) for said first tubular element which maintain the tubular element (5) in a determined position relative to the support element (6, 7), in which alignment means (16) are present between said support element (6, 7) and said tubular element (5) to maintain a determined angular position between the tubular element (5) and the support element (6, 7), said locking means (8) comprising a threaded (132A) ring (132) rotatably fixed to one from among the support element (6, 7) and the tubular element (5), the other from among the support element (6, 7) and the tubular element (5) presenting a thread (5A) cooperating with the thread (132A) of said ring (132). rotation of said ring (132) causing continuous movement of one element relative to the other.

Bicycles comprise a frame into which a tubular element (tube sleeve) supporting a saddle and a tubular element supporting a handlebar are inserted. At the point at which the tubular element is inserted, the frame normally presents an axial slot, to the sides of which two projecting lugs are welded, with a screw passing between them. On tightening said screw, the frame diameter is slightly reduced to lock the tubular element at a determined height.
The height (in particular of the saddle) is usually adjusted by slackening the screw engaging the two lugs and acting on the saddle to adjust its height by forcing it to a greater or lesser extent into the frame. Having adjusted the height, the saddle is aligned with the frame by rotating the tubular element which supports it in the frame, until the correct position is achieved. The saddle is then fixed by tightening the previously slackened screw.

Height adjustment device for saddles or handlebars


Devices, systems and methods for routing wires or other inserted members thru walls or other structural elements are described. For at least one embodiment, a device, for forming a channel between two structural elements, includes a first member configured for insertion into a first hole, and a second member configured for insertion into a second hole. The first member may be configured for mating with the second member while the second member is being inserted into the second hole such that a channel is formed by the first member mated with the second member. The channel facilitates routing of an inserted member into and thru the first hole, thru the channel formed by the first member mated with the second member, and thru and out of the second hole.

Fire and building codes commonly regulate how electrical wiring, plumbing or other materials (interchangeably herein, each such material being referred to as a "wire" or an "inserted member") may be inserted into and/or through existing building structures, such as walls, floors, ceilings, or otherwise (interchangeably herein, each such structure being referred to as a "wall" or a "structural element" of the building, vehicle, or other object). Often such walls are hollow and the applicable codes require that each inserted member be made such that the fire integrity and/or structural integrity of the structural element and often the structure itself is maintained. Maintaining the fire integrity typically involves the providing of a fire rated isolating member around any inserted member such that heat is not transferred from an environment exterior to the wall into the wall by the opening and/or any channel provided by the inserted member. Maintaining the structural integrity often involves providing fastening of an inserted member having certain load, torsion, and other requirements. It is to be appreciated that fire integrity and/or structural integrity requirements may vary by building, location in building, environmental concerns, and otherwise. With electrical wiring, such isolating members are often NOMEX® coating for the wires. With plumbing, such isolating members are often pipes made from PVC (Poly Vinyl Chloride), ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene), or other known materials. For certain high environmental stressed conditions, such as structures arising in potential hurricane, tornado and other environmental factors (and corresponding structural requirements) such as wind, rain, and the like may also need to be satisfied when one seeks to route a wire through a wall.
Fire and building codes also typically require that any inserted member be affixed to the wall. For electrical wiring and plumbing, such affixing often requires the use of junction boxes, stapling of wiring to wall members, such as studs, and other well-known fastening requirements. These requirements often incur undesired cost and expense when one desires to route a wire thru a wall. Other requirements may also arise, such as those dictated by aesthetic concerns, or otherwise. Herein, such fire, structural, environmental, and/or other requirements are generically and collectively referred to as "requirements."
It is commonly appreciated that the insertion of a wire through a wall, using currently known and available technologies, often requires the skills of a certified or licensed electrician and often is a very involved process in terms of time and materials utilized. Such concerns often give rise to "work-arounds," where instead of routing a wire thru a wall, the wire is instead routed around the wall, e.g., thru an open doorway, along an exterior of a building, or otherwise. These "work-arounds" often present unique safety concerns as well as being aesthetically unpleasing.
Accordingly, a need exists for devices and methods for routing wires thru walls which address the foregoing fire, structural, environmental and other concerns.

Devices, systems and methods for routing wires through walls


An adjusting bolt is screwed into a nut attached to a dolly, and is disposed such that a central axis thereof is parallel to a closing and opening direction of a contact. A lever is attached to a shaft. An electrically-insulating rod is coupled to a first end of the lever, and a pin is mounted to a second end of the lever. The adjusting bolt is turned and lowered to lower the pin. The lever and the shaft are pivoted by the lowering of the pin, and the electrically-insulating rod is raised. Thus, a movable contact moves toward a fixed contact, moving the contact from an open state to a closed state.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vacuum circuit breaker disposed so as to be fixed inside a switchgear, a vacuum circuit breaker contact slow closing method, and a contact erosion measuring method and contact gap length setting method using that slow closing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In conventional gas-insulated cubicles, withstand voltages of contacts of vacuum interrupters disposed in sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) gas have hitherto been examined by setting the contacts to a predetermined gap length manually.
In slow closing methods in these conventional gas-insulated cubicles, the gap length of the contacts has been set to a predetermined value by moving a plunger of an electromagnetic apparatus for closing the contacts of the vacuum interrupter using a manually-operated handle and interposing a spacer between an opening and closing lever and a damper operating interdependently with the movement of the plunger. (See Patent Literature 1, for example.)
In these conventional slow closing methods, because the spacer is slid between the opening and closing lever and the damper by pressing a push button mounted to the spacer, the spacer can be interposed between the opening and closing lever and the damper by an external push-button operation, making the operation of mounting the spacer safer. Because a resetting spring is interposed between the push button and a guiding frame for the push button, the spacer is withdrawn from between the opening and closing lever and the damper automatically after a withstand voltage test by ceasing to press the push button, making the operation of removing the spacer safer. In addition, because a pin is disposed so as to protrude from the opening and closing lever and a securing portion is formed on the spacer such that the pin is engaged in the securing portion when the spacer is interposed between the opening and closing lever and the damper, it is possible to leave the push button pressed, enabling the withstand voltage test to be executed more safely.
Patent Literature 1: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. HEI 11-86696 (Gazette)
Conventional vacuum circuit breaker slow closing methods have the following problems:
(1) Because the gap length is set by interposing the spacer between the opening and closing lever and the damper, fine adjustment of the gap length is not possible;
(2) Because the contacts are moved by a lever principle using a manually-operated handle, workability is reduced when setting the gap length;
(3) Specialized equipment is required when performing slow closing, increasing costs; and
(4) The construction of an operating mechanism portion is complicated, making workability poor in slow closing methods in which the operating mechanism portion is operated.

Vacuum circuit breaker, vacuum circuit breaker contact slow closing method, and contact erosion measuring method and contact gap length setting method using that slow closing method


A method and apparatus for face-to-face weaving of an upper and a lower fabric on a face-to-face weaving machine, upper and lower fabric (101, 102) comprising at least a first zone with pile loops, the pile loops being formed around one or several lost pile loop weft yarns (16, 16′), and comprising at least a second zone where no pile loops are formed around lost pile loop weft yarns and catch means (1, 1′) being provided for supporting the lost pile loop weft yarns (16, 16′) within the second zone in one or several areas in the weft direction where no pile loops are formed around these lost pile loop weft yarns (16, 16′).

The invention relates to a method and a face-to-face weaving machine for face-to-face weaving of an upper and a lower fabric, said upper and lower fabric comprising at least a first zone with pile loops, the pile loops being formed around lost pile loop weft yarns, and comprising at least a second zone where no pile loops are formed around lost pile loop weft yarns.
In face-to-face weaving with a face-to-face weaving machine an upper and a lower fabric are simultaneously woven. For weaving fabrics with a loop pile, lost pile loop weft yarns are used to realize the pile loops. Most of the time, the lost pile loop weft yarns are inserted above a spacer which is defining the height of the loop. The lost pile loop weft yarns are removed from the upper and the lower fabric, after having separated the upper and the lower backing fabric, and when the loop pile is combined with the cut pile after cutting through the zones with the pile to be cut (the pile which extends between the lower and the upper fabric).
In face-to-face weaving of an upper and a lower fabric on a face-to-face weaving machine, in which said upper and/or lower fabric comprises at least a first zone with pile loops, where the pile loops are formed around lost pile loop weft yarns, and comprises at least a second zone where no pile loops are formed around lost pile loop weft yarns, the problem claims the attention that when in said second zone in the upper and/or the lower fabric, an area in the weft direction where no pile loops are formed around lost pile loop weft yarns will bridge a considerable length, this lost weft yarn will not be kept by pile loops over this length. This may have several disadvantageous consequences during the weaving process. As far as the upper fabric is concerned, this means that the lost pile loop weft yarns may sag. First of all, this sagging may result in that the lost pile loop weft yarns may get in touch with the lower fabric and may get stuck there. Furthermore, the lost pile loop weft yarns may end up in the reach of the cutting device, because of which they might impede the separation of the upper from the lower fabric. When the loop pile is combined with the cut pile, the cutting process of the pile to be cut may be impeded. Furthermore, excessive wear of the knife may occur, the lost pile loop weft yarns may become stuck between the knife carriage and the guide, the pile loop weft yarn itself may be cut through, because of which it will be impossible to remove it entirely after the upper and the lower fabric have been separated. As far as the lower fabric is concerned, this means that with a combination of loop pile and cut pile in said second zone, where one or several areas occur in the weft direction, where no pile loops are formed around lost pile loop weft yarns, these areas will influence the cutting process of the pile to be cut in the same negative way.
In BE 9900493 a fabric with a combination of cut pile and false boucle is described (forming of loop pile around a weft yarn which is situated on the backing fabric and most of the time is a thick weft yarn). In said patent may be seen that, between 2 pile tufts of the cut pile, false pile loops are formed over the thick weft yarn, in order to avoid that this weft yarn will sag or will hang freely when no pile loops are formed in the weft direction around the various warp yarn systems of a wider zone. The disadvantage of this principle is, that it can only be applied with false loops, as they will lean closely against the backing fabric and will be present unnoticed between the cut pile. However, with a true forming of loops, because of its height and because of its tendency to bend also in the warp direction, the pile loop will not be able to secure the lost weft yarns unnoticed in the same manner.

Method and face-to-face weaving machine for face-to-face weaving of an upper and lower fabric


An optical unit for multiplying the frequency of a clock signal includes at least two series-arranged ring lasers. Each ring laser has a different resonance frequency f.sub.i. The unit has an input for receiving a signal, for example, a low-frequency electric signal for modulating one of the ring lasers. The repetition frequency of at least one of the ring lasers is variable by adapting the optical path length of the resonator.

The invention relates to an optical unit for multiplying the frequency of a clock signal.
The invention also relates to a high-frequency carrier transmission system in which the receiver is provided with such an optical unit.
In systems operating with high-frequency signals, i.e. signals having a frequency of more than 10 GHz, there is the problem that the current electronic components are not rapid enough and are thus not satisfactory. 10 GHz may be considered to be an electronic barrier. Moreover, in many cases, these systems also comprise semiconductor lasers which can generally be modulated only to frequencies of 10-15 GHz maximum. Applications in which high-frequency signals are desired, which may also play an important role in future, are, for example, satellite transmission, optical telecommunication and mobile telephony.
In such systems, inter alia, high transmission rates are aimed at. To be able to detect data transmitted at high transmission rates, in other words data series having a relatively high modulation frequency, as faultlessly as possible, the repetition frequency of the clock signal should also be increased.

Optical unit for multiplying the frequency of a clock signal


The present invention relates to computer hardware design, and in particular to a printed circuit board (card) comprising wiring dedicated to supply electric board components such as integrated circuits with at least three different reference planes. In particular at locations, where the pins of a card-to-card connector enter the layer structure of the card discontinuities brake the high frequency signal return path of a given signal wiring.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to computer hardware design, and in particular to a printed circuit board connector circuit for arrangement between two printed circuit boards, said connector circuit comprising wiring dedicated to supply electric board components such as integrated circuits with at least three different reference planes.
2. Description and Disadvantages of Prior Art
A prior art connective device between two printed circuit boards is depicted schematically and in a simplified way in FIG. 1. Details follow later below.
Such printed circuit boards are also referred to herein as "cards". The present invention will be defined from prior art by referencing a card connector between a mother card and a daughter card as this relates to common practice.
In complex computer systems there is the need to supply a card with more than two voltage levels as represented by the nominal supply voltage and ground, but instead very often, a third voltage level V3 or even more voltage levels are needed to be implemented at the card. Signal wiring and voltage supply are often arranged in separate planes, and a card has a sandwich-like plane structure, wherein vias connect between different planes. Further, those voltages represent a voltage reference in relation to signal wiring, so the voltage planes are referred to herein also as reference planes.
Those reference planes are metallization planes which implement often one ground and two different voltage levels, often denoted as GROUND, Vdd and V3, thus e.g. GND=0 Volt, Vdd=1.8 Volt, and for example an intermediate voltage level V3 as e.g., V3=1.5 Volt.
With reference to the very focus of the present invention it is useful to make a distinction between different packaging levels, like Chip level, Multi Chip Modules (MCM), MCM connectors, card levels, card connectors, back plane boards, where different electrical situations prevail, but which must be electrically connected to each other for operation.
Further packaging levels are for instance (in a bottom up view): The chip as a zero packaging level, chip-module as a first packaging level, cards (so called printed wiring boards) carrying different multiple chip-modules as a second packaging level, or so called mother boards carrying different card connectors with daughter cards as a third level package.
When connecting two cards, i.e., two printed circuit boards of complex computer systems, a lot of performance critical high-frequency signals thus do not stay within one and the same packaging level.
More particularly, and with reference to FIG. 1 a first card 110 is shown connected to a second card 118 by aid of a connector device 111. A signal line 115 is depicted to cross from the first card 110 via the connector 111 to the second card 118. The same is true for a ground line 116 and a supply voltage line 117 and a further voltage line 119, having the voltage level denoted as V3.
Signals like that one depicted as signal 115 often pass the above-mentioned different packaging levels and components. In each of the packaging levels and components the signal is referenced to voltage and ground layers, pins or plated through-holes, abbreviated as PTH, adjacent to them. This is depicted in FIG. 1 symbolically with signal 115 and adjacent ground pin 116 and voltage pin 119.
In different cards and connectors the voltage level acting as a signal reference can vary, due to the need to distribute different voltage levels inside the cards and system, i.e., within the sandwich layer structure of the cards.
Cost-driven card and system designs often need special design solutions in order to find a trade-off between cost and the optimum electrical design. Therefore, so-called connector shields in the signal area are not only used as a signal high-frequency return current reference, but also as a current distribution for different voltage levels. Thus, signals 115 may have different references in mother card 110 and daughter card 118 as well as in the connector 111. Due to these discontinuities signal coupling, i.e. the so-called crosstalk, will disadvantageously increase dramatically.
With further reference to a publication in IBM Journal of Research and Development, Vol. 48, No. 3/4, published May, July 2004 and FIGS. 2, 3, 4 and 5 (table representation) three exemplary cases of a card-to-card connections are given having different electrical properties in terms of the before-mentioned high-frequency crosstalk problems. In the above publication the technological background for this problem is discussed.
In order to demonstrate the effects of non ideal high frequency signal return path measurements are disclosed performed on a special card test vehicle consisting of two cards connected with a card connector.
FIG. 2 (case 1) is a partly cross sectional view including a multi layer structure illustrating a signal wiring 35 from a more top layer to a more bottom layer, crossing the intermediate layers by a via (depicted as vertical line), illustrating the schematics of the electro-magnetic field around the signal wiring and the associated high frequency signal return path in the layers adjacent to the signal wire, in an ideal case, wherein the signal wiring 35 is embedded always between two power planes; these could also be two ground planes. Here the return path is basically closed all over the signal 35 travel from card 1, over the via of the connector until reaching card 2, as the signal is embedded always by the same voltage reference (either Ground, or Power).
FIG. 3 (case 2) is a depiction according to FIG. 2 including a voltage plane 32 separating signal line 35 and an additional signal wiring 36 in the card 2 portion. In the top portion of card 1 the same good closing of the return path is achieved.
In the bottom portion of card 2 however, the signal 36 is embedded between a ground plane 20 and a voltage plane 30. This implies a return path for signal 35 which is slightly worse than in FIG. 2.
FIG. 4 is a depiction according to FIG. 3 but including a floating pin 40 and illustrating a "worst" case high frequency signal return path for signal 35. Floating can be assumed to occur due to the fact that pin 40 is connected to a reference voltage or to Ground in a quite long distance only. From this floating state a high noise coupling results from signal line 35 to signal line 36 within a discontinuity region within a circle 42 depicted by a broken line. The exact results are given in the table of FIG. 5. Near end is understood to be within card 1, and far end is within card 2.
Measurements performed for the case 2 prove that the high frequency return is nearly as good as for the ideal case 1.
In contrast to that, measurements performed for the case 3 show a significant increase of coupled noise.
In case 3 the floating pin 40 is not connected to any reference plane in card 1 or 2. Therefore the high frequency return current in all other adjacent pins will be increased and thus signal coupling will be increased, if the next neighbouring pins are signal pins. In table 1 the near and far end coupling is depicted for all three cases. In comparison, while the differences in coupling in cases 1 and 2 are negligible, the coupling increases significantly in case 3 by a factor of 4 (near end) and 10 . . . 11 for the far end. Usually, a floating pin 40 is not used in the system design. From a high frequency return path of view, however, a connector pin connected to a voltage or ground plane far away from the internal signal wire connected to the signal pin behaves like a floating pin. This means with increasing distance of the pin (carrying the high frequency return signal) to the power/ground connection, the signal coupling will also increase.
A further printed circuit board structure is disclosed by incorporation in a product sold by IBM, available under IBM eServer zSeries z990 discloses the technical context illustrated in FIGS. 6 and 7. In this publication so-called soft switches are mentioned which are used to drive down the card voltage, when the card has to be replaced in a running system or to prevent cards from being damaged or from malfunctions caused by "over-current". The soft switch separates the card 1 internal voltage 2, FIG. 6, from the source voltage 1 in card 2. The high frequency return path of the signal path—when passing from card 1 to card 2—is said to be broken, which would result in an increased signal coupling. In order to limit the signal coupling it is disclosed to add a second voltage plane as shown in prior art FIG. 7. Thus, a complete plane pair exists having a level of voltage 1 an voltage 2, respectively, which is said to limit the impedance mismatch and the signal-to-signal coupling at the card discontinuity and to provide a good high frequency signal return path due to an efficient internal plane capacitance. This solution is, however, not applicable for cost-driven card designs as the additional plane increases the costs.
It is thus desired to close the high frequency signal return path around a signal path 115 from card to card including the connector, in order to limit the signal coupling while concurrently keeping the card design as simple as possible.

Abstract: In order to close the signal return path around a signal path from card to card including the connector, and thus to limit the signal coupling while concurrently keeping the card design as simple as possible, it is proposed to provide    a) an additional capacitance for a given signal wiring in a discontinuity section,    b) wherein the additional capacitance is formed by a voltage island placed within a signal layer located next to the given signal wiring.

International Business Machines Corporation


A polishing pad is adhered to the top surface of a flat polishing pad holder of a platen. A substrate holding head for holding and rotating a semiconductor substrate is provided above the platen. The semiconductor substrate is rotated and pressed against the polishing pad on the platen. A slurry is supplied in a prescribed amount from a slurry supply pipe onto the polishing pad. A slat-like slurry pushing member for pushing the slurry to a central portion of the platen is provided slidably over the polishing pad. The slurry pushing member is fixed so that an inner portion thereof in a radial direction of the platen is downstream of an outer portion thereof in the radial direction of the platen in the direction of rotation of the platen during polishing.

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for polishing a semiconductor substrate whereby chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) is performed with respect to a semiconductor substrate of silicon or the like to flatten a surface thereof.
From the 1990s, CMP technology for polishing semiconductor substrates of silicon or the like has shown increasing tendencies toward single-wafer processing as the semiconductor substrates processed by CMP have had larger diameters on the order of 10 cm or more, resulting in an increased amount of slurry consumed per wafer.
By way of example, a conventional apparatus for polishing a semiconductor substrate will be described below with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 22 schematically shows the construction of the conventional polishing apparatus, in which is shown a platen 11 including: a substrate holder 11a made of a rigid material and having a flat surface; a rotary shaft 11b extending vertically downwardly from the back surface of the substrate holder 11a; and rotating means (not shown) for rotating the rotary shaft 11b. To the top surface of the substrate holder 11a of the platen 11 is adhered a polishing pad 12. Above the platen 11 is provided a substrate holding head 14 which holds and rotates a semiconductor substrate 13. The semiconductor substrate 13 is rotated and pressed against the polishing pad 12 on the platen 11 by the substrate holding head 14. A slurry 15 containing abrasive grains (extremely fine powder for polishing) is dropped in a prescribed amount from a slurry supply pipe 16 onto the polishing pad 12 so as to supply the abrasive grains to the space between the polishing pad 12 and the semiconductor substrate 13.
In the polishing apparatus thus constructed, the polishing pad 12 supplied with the slurry 15 is rotated by rotating the platen 11 and the semiconductor substrate 13 is pressed against the rotating polishing pad 12 by the substrate holding head 14 so that a surface of the semiconductor substrate 13 is polished.
In this process, if the surface of the semiconductor substrate 13 is rugged, the polishing rate is increased at projecting portions of the semiconductor substrate 13 since their contact pressure with the polishing pad 12 is high. On the other hand, the polishing rate is reduced at recessed portions of the semiconductor substrate 13 since their contact pressure with the polishing pad 12 is low. Consequently, the surface of the semiconductor substrate 13 becomes less rugged and more smooth.
However, the above polishing apparatus have the following problems.
When a consideration is given to the amount of supplied slurry and the polishing rate, the polishing rate increases with increases in the amount of supplied slurry 15 and eventually becomes constant when the amount of supplied slurry reaches a given value. Accordingly, the amount of slurry 15 normally supplied onto the polishing pad 12 is slightly larger than the given value with which the polishing rate becomes constant.
However, since the slurry 15 is supplied onto the rotating polishing pad 12 as described above, the slurry 15 is caused to flow to the peripheral portion of the polishing pad 12 by a centrifugal force accompanying the rotation of the platen 11. When the amount of slurry 15 becomes smaller than the given value, the polishing rate is reduced. To compensate for the reduction in the polishing rate, the pressure for pressing the semiconductor substrate 13 against the polishing pad 12 should be increased. However, the increased pressure induces dishing or like phenomenon, which causes such a problem as the degradation of polishing properties. Hence, the slurry should constantly be supplied in an amount slightly larger than the given value with which the polishing rate becomes constant, so that the cost of the slurry accounts for a considerable proportion of the cost of polishing.
To solve the problem, there have been proposed an apparatus and method for polishing wherein a slurry on a polishing pad is prevented from flowing out by a partition board enclosing the polishing pad, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,910,155.
According to the apparatus and method for polishing, however, foreign matters such as tips of polishing pad generated at the polishing are accumulated on the polishing pad. Also, water supplied onto the polishing pad to clean up a semiconductor substrate after polishing or perform dressing (the conditioning of the surface of the polishing pad) as well as the slurry is prevented from flowing out, resulting in unfavorable variations in the concentration of the slurry, which changes the polishing properties.

Method and apparatus for polishing semiconductor substrate

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


An electrical outlet strip is controlled by sound or an audio signal. The electrical outlet strip can include a plurality of outlets having a selector switch for either each outlet or one selector switch that controls all the outlets. The selector switch can control whether the outlets are powered directly be the input power, or if the outlets are controlled by the audio signal or sound. When the outlets are controlled by the audio signal or sound, the audio signal or sound can be filtered into a plurality of bands, one for each outlet, for example. There audio signal or sound can be input to the outlet strip by various mechanisms, including WiFi, Bluetooth®, FM wireless receiver, via an audio jack, via a microphone, or the like.

The present invention relates to electrical outlet strips and, more particularly, to an electrical outlet strip that is controlled by music or sound.
There are many situations where it may be desired to control power output with an audio signal or sound. For example, lighting or strings of lights, such as those used for holiday lighting, are currently not easily controlled by an audio signal or sound.
In addition, there may be a need to control power output to multiple power outlets based on the characteristics of the sound. For example, one may desire to power on a first outlet when a low pitch is played and a separate outlet when a high pitch is played.
Computerized systems do exist for controlling lights based on sound, however, these systems are often expensive and complicated, often requiring an experienced program or someone that has background experience using the software and hardware.
As can be seen, there is a need for a device that can easily and simply provide power based on an audio signal input or sound.

Audio signal control of electrical outlet strip


An apparatus to minimize and/or eliminate the effects associated with reperfusion injury consisting of an external pump, heat exchanger and control unit creating a flow loop whereby blood is moved from the body via a pump, cooled by an external heat exchanger and reintroduced into a specific location, thereby locally cooling the surrounding tissue and inducing localized hypothermia to minimize tissue injury resulting from ischemia and the effects associated with reperfusion injury as an obstruction is removed and normal blood flow is restored and including the ability to locally measure pressure and temperature in the body.

The present invention relates generally to an apparatus and method for minimizing the effects of ischemia and the subsequent injury upon reperfusion of organs and/or tissue masses resulting from minimal to total obstructions of normal blood flow. This is achieved by the integration of a pump, heat exchanger and control unit providing the ability to locally cool a part of the anatomy inducing local hypothermia and minimizing and/or eliminating the injury associated with ischemia and subsequent reperfusion.
When a patient comes into the emergency room showing signs of a stroke or heart attack, three options for treatment are available: pharmacological intervention (i.e., the use of thrombolytics), invasive surgery or minimally invasive treatment to eliminate or lessen an obstruction in a coronary vessel. Catheter based treatments have become the standard care path for the diagnosis and treatment of strokes or acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Studies have shown that a significant amount of tissue damage occurs due to the reperfusion of warm blood into the previously occluded vessels.
The total extent of tissue injury and the amount attributed to either the ischemic event or reperfusion is unknown. However, localized cooling has been shown to both reduce tissue injury during ischemia and the amount of injury resulting from reperfusion of the tissue. Reperfusion injury is caused by an immediate increase in rapid flow of blood into an organ or tissue mass previously rendered ischemic and is attributed to oxidative stress, intercellular calcium overload, neutrophil and platelet activation, reduced microvascular flow, metabolic disturbances, the buildup of toxins in the tissue and inflammatory reactions. Renewed normothermic blood flow worsens tissue damage either by causing additional injury or by unmasking injury sustained during the ischemic period. Thus, early treatment of an obstruction, for example in the heart using percutaneous coronary intervention, is desirable. Once the obstruction is alleviated normothermic blood flow is restored to the ischemic region resulting in a reperfusion injury.
Experimental evidence has shown that reductions in tissue temperature can reduce the effects of ischemia, reperfusion injury, or inadequate blood flow. Among other mechanisms, hypothermia decreases tissue metabolism, concentrations of toxic metabolic byproducts, and suppresses the inflammatory response in the aftermath of ischemic tissue injury. Mild cooling of the tissue region by a temperature of as little as 3-4° C. below normal body temperature may provide a protective effect with the increase in protection/reduction in injury directly associated with the decrease in temperature of the organ or tissue effected by the ischemic event. Hypothermia has been shown to drastically reduce oxygen free radical production and intercellular calcium overload, platelet aggregation, the occurrence of microvascular obstruction, metabolic demand, and inflammatory response in the aftermath of ischemic tissue injury. Hypothermia may provide ischemic protection and may enhance patient recovery by ameliorating secondary tissue injury. Depending on the time of initiation, hypothermia can be intra-ischemic, post-ischemic, or both. Hypothermic ischemic protection is preventive if tissue metabolism can be reduced. It may also enhance recovery by reducing secondary tissue injury or decreasing ischemic edema formation. Since the metabolic reduction is less than 10% per degree Celsius, deep hypothermia targeting 20-25 degrees Celsius, provides adequate tissue protection via metabolic slowdown. Secondary tissue injury, thought to be mainly caused by enzymatic activity, is greatly diminished by mild to moderate hypothermia targeting 32-35 degrees Celsius.
Not only can hypothermia be protective for the unexpected onset of ischemia it can be used prophylactically where surgical intervention/medical therapy will cause a known ischemic event (e.g., cardiac bypass and organ transplant surgery). To harness the therapeutic value of hypothermia the primary focus thus far has been on systemic body surface or vascular cooling. Systemic cooling has specific limitations and drawbacks related to its inherent unselective nature. Research has shown that systemic or whole body cooling may lead to cardiovascular irregularities such as reduced cardiac output and ventricular fibrillation, an increased risk of infection, and blood chemistry alterations.
In practice, systemic cooling apparatus and their associated methods require long periods of time to achieve target tissue temperatures causing damage along the way. External cooling devices have been used as adjunct therapy for cardiac arrest where the goal is to salvage brain tissue and improve neurological outcomes. Many systemic cooling systems require the movement of large volumes of blood flow to the brain and cooling is achieved by diluting blood with infusion of cold fluids. In general, these devices and their associated methods are not applicable to localized cooling to reduce reperfusion injury in specific organs or tissue masses. To date localized cooling techniques have been defined by placement of an ice pack over the particular area of a patient's body and puncturing the pericardium and infusing cooled fluid into a reservoir inserted into the pericardial space near the ischemic cardiac tissue.
Few concepts have attempted local, organ specific cooling. Local cooling approaches have been limited by the technological challenges related to developing catheter systems including internal heat exchangers and the reliability and safety associated with their use. Namely, without a control feedback loop monitoring physiological conditions at the treatment location and adjusting the cooling the ability to repeatedly and continually induce specific localized cooling parameters is random at best and lacks the accuracy and repeatability required in providing medical treatment. An advantage of local or organ level cooling is the reduced thermal inertia, since the cooling capacity required is directly proportional to the mass being cooled. Cooling a portion of a 300 gram heart vs. a 70,000 gram body of a patient takes significantly less cooling capacity to reach equivalent reduced temperatures.
While hypothermia technologies have been progressing, the fields of endovascular intervention and minimally invasive surgery have also grown. Today therapeutic devices include stent placement, angioplasty, direct thrombolytic infusion, and mechanical devices for clot removal. In each of these therapeutic environments, ischemic damage is the focus. To accomplish this however, requires an integrated cooling system that not only offers the ability to cool but also can monitor physiological conditions at a specific location in the body. Monitoring the physiological conditions facilitates local cooling of an organ or tissue mass by accommodating heat loss along the length of a catheter, regulating local pressure changes, and provide a sustained environment while adjunct therapy is administered and normal blood flow is restored. Heat transfer enhancement is the fundamental task for achieving safe, effective arterial cooling. Monitoring the conditions at the specific cooling site permits the system to achieve the highest level of cooling capacity in the smallest volume possible. Heat exchanger design optimization attempts to achieve one or a combination of the following objectives: 1) reduce the size of the transport device; 2) increase the UA (U, the overall transport coefficient and A, the exchange surface area) to reduce the device-body fluid driving potential for exchange or increase the heat and or mass exchange rate; and 3) reduce the pumping power required to meet a heat and/or mass exchange target value.
Most endovascular cooling catheter designs employ external passive transport enhancement techniques, where a fixed or static cooling catheter is placed inside a stagnant or moving body fluid. Passive techniques are transport enhancement approaches that do not add mixing energy to the fluid system of interest. The approach involves adding surface area and/or inducing turbulence adjacent to the effective exchange surface area. They are particularly effective when fluid pumping power is virtually limitless. In the human body, however, physiological constraints limit the hydraulic energy or fluid pumping power. As a result, passively enhanced devices in small arterial vessels are likely lead to substantial blood side flow resistance, diminishing organ perfusion levels.
In general, current designs are suited for the venous system, a system with large veins, significantly larger than small arteries. In this environment most of devices have low heat exchange surface area to device volume ratios. This leads to potentially harmful vessel occlusion characteristics, particularly with smaller arterial blood vessels, increasing the chance of further ischemic injury. Unless additional energy is put into the blood flow stream, conservation of energy dictates that in most cases a boost in heat transfer will come at an increased cost in pressure drop. If the cardiovascular system cannot overcome this additional foreign resistance, perfusion rates must fall.
Furthermore traditional catheters do not have dedicated adjunctive therapy pathways. Again, the catheter designs are built largely for the venous applications where adjunctive therapies are less likely. As a result, these designs do not integrate well with existing endovascular tools, such as angioplasty catheters. Although present devices are functional for venous applications, they are not sufficient for arterial applications. Accordingly, a system and method are needed to address the shortfalls of present technology and to provide other new and innovative features.
United States Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0041217 to Halperin discloses the use of a controller applying an algorithm to maintain a predefined infusion pressure, however the controller is limited to systemic pressure alone and does not provided feedback of the local environment where the ischemic event and reperfusion have occurred. Hence the Halperin disclosure does not control the safe application of cooled fluid within the body inducing localized hypothermia.
However, taking blood from the body cooling it and redelivering it within a specific location with control feedback and localized monitoring used in conjunction with interventional devices (stents, angioplasty balloons, etc.) provides a safe and effective means of inducing localized hypothermia to minimize the negative effects associated with temporary ischemia and injury upon reperfusion in a controlled manner.
There are several designs available for a small artery cooling catheter, such as shown in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006-0058859 A1 to Merrill, which is herein incorporated by reference. Some catheter configurations define an exchange catheter with heat and mass exchange surfaces, some define a transport catheter to carry the coolant, and some include a rear external hub to connect the device to an outside control console and engage adjunctive therapeutic devices. One particular cooling catheter configuration uses natural pressure differences between the aorta and the end organ to carry blood inside the cooling catheter.
Traditional devices as taught in U.S. Pat. No. 6,033,383 to Ginsburg and U.S. Pat. No. 6,645,234 to Evans cool blood as a function of heat transfer from a coolant which is delivered within a catheter and provided in close contact with the flowing blood. In other words the blood is cooled as it flows past and/or through a catheter based device having a cooling element contained within its construction. These types of devices do not provide sufficient control so that the specific organ or tissue mass is cooled sufficiently to produce localized hypothermia. Additionally, the multi-lumen designs of Ginsburg and Evans required to provide paths for coolant, blood, and any interventional procedures results in a large external diameter of roughly 8 French. In addition, the pressure differential provided by the normal circulation of blood may not be sufficient to direct flowing blood in a manner required to optimize heat transfer and induce localized hypothermia.
Conversely, a completely external cooling system with sufficient controls and feedback is better able to integrate into the current treatment modality for ischemic conditions (e.g., stents, balloon angioplasty, clot removal devices) and the subsequent reperfusion. United States Patent Application US 2004/0167467 to Harrison et al. discloses a localized cooling method containing a temperature probe within the distal end of the catheter measuring the temperature of the fluid exiting the catheter. However, the temperature probe is not operatively connected to the heat exchanger, and there is no control unit monitoring and adjusting the flow rate, amount of cooling, or the localized pressure to provide a safe and efficacious supply of localized cooled fluid controlled per the users specifications before, prior to, and after an ischemic event.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide an apparatus to facilitate the localized cooling of a flow of blood to a specific region or organ of a patient's body as an adjunct to interventional therapy lessening reperfusion injury, and which is configured with a feedback control system to monitor and adjust both the temperature and pressure of the cooling flow of blood and to monitor the patient's internal temperatures and blood pressures to ensure patient safety.
It would further be advantageous to provide a cooling system capable of delivering cold blood to a treatment site while allowing a physician to use familiar catheters and interventional tools.

Apparatus for treatment of reperfusion injury


Methods and systems for detecting viable bacterial endospores in a sample and related methods to quantify viable bacterial endospores in a sample.

Bacterial endospores can survive without nutrients. They are resistant to ultraviolet radiation, desiccation, high temperature, extreme freezing and chemical disinfectants. Common anti-bacterial agents that work by destroying vegetative cell walls don't work on endospores. Endospores are commonly found in soil and water, where they may survive for long periods of time.
Development of a rapid and/or sensitive method for detecting and in particular quantitatively detecting bacterial endospores has been challenging.

Methods for detecting and quantifying viable bacterial endo-spores


A semiconductor memory apparatus includes a first comparison block configured to compare a plurality of channel data with one another and generate a first comparison signal, or output one of the plurality of channel data as the first comparison signal, in response to a plurality of channel select signals; a second comparison block configured to compare the plurality of channel data and generate a second comparison signal when the plurality of channel select signals have a predetermined combination and a channel detection signal has a predetermined logic level; a channel selection detection block configured to enable the channel detection signal when only one channel select signal among the plurality of channel select signals is enabled; and a combined output block configured to enable a test result signal when at least one comparison signal of the first and second comparison signals is enabled.

1. Technical Field
Various embodiments generally relate to a semiconductor integrated circuit, and more particularly to a semiconductor memory apparatus.
2. Related Art
As integrated circuits continue to shrink in size, a three-dimensional integrated circuit becomes a natural alternative to continued advances. A three-dimensional integrated circuit packaging is, among other things, an integrated circuit manufactured by stacking a plurality of semiconductor chips. One of the advantages of the three-dimensional integrated circuit packaging is that the plurality of semiconductor chips can operate at the same time, and it is possible to increase the amount of data that can be transmitted at the same time by increasing the number of channels between the plurality of semiconductor chips.
A large number of channels between the semiconductor chips entail a large number of junctions, and these may cause defects. Due to the increase in the number of channels, however, test time reduction is considered a major challenge.


A housing for a semiconductor component, in which the housing has a plurality of pins which are provided at the edge of the housing at distances, the pins each having a width, a thickness and a length. In order to create a housing for a semiconductor component whose characteristic frequencies are outside a range in which the characteristic frequencies of the housing negatively influence the semiconductor component, either at least one of the distances lies outside the range of 1.24 mm to 1.30 mm, at least one of the widths lies outside the range of 0.33 mm to 0.51 mm, at least one of the thicknesses lies outside the range of 0.23 to 0.32 mm, or at least one of the lengths lies outside the range of 2.05 to 4.12 mm.

Such a housing for a semiconductor component has several pins provided at the edge of the housing at intervals, the pins each having a width, a thickness and a length. Certain dimensions of the housing, such as the width and the thickness of the pins are established by the JEDEC standard. The length of the pins is not stipulated, but comes about indirectly from the remaining dimensions. The housing and the pins form a vibratory system which has certain characteristic frequencies. These characteristic frequencies are established by the dimensions and additional parameters, such as the weight of the housing and the materials used. The semiconductor component accommodated in the housing includes a micromechanical acceleration sensor and an integrated circuit. The acceleration sensor has a seismic mass that is able to be excited to resonant vibration. These resonant vibrations considerably corrupt the measurements of the acceleration sensor.
One disadvantage is that the characteristic frequencies of the housing are able to be suitable for exciting the seismic mass to resonances, so that the measurements of the acceleration sensor are corrupted considerably. The characteristic frequencies are established by the dimensions, the weights and the materials of the housing and the springs. Since certain materials are required, or at least may be preferred, the weight comes about due to the materials and the dimensions, and the dimensions are established by the JEDEC standard, such corruptions cannot be removed for the standardized housing.