A tube coupling for connection to a conduit through which a cable may pass includes a coupling body having an open ended throughway to receive an end of the conduit and a tube locking device in the open end of the throughway for locking the conduit in the coupling body. The throughway has a reduced diameter section with an annular step at an end of the section facing towards the open end of the throughway to receive the end of the conduit inserted into the throughway. An annular flexible sealing member is disposed adjacent the step to be forced by an end of a tube inserted into the throughway into the reduced diameter section of the throughway. Compression of the annular flexible seal forces the seal into sealing engagement with a cable extending along the throughway to provide a seal between the coupling body and cable.

1. The Field of the Invention
This invention relates to tube couplings for connecting a pair of conduits through which a cable extends and more particularly although not exclusively for connecting a pair of conduits through which an optical fiber cable extends.
2. The Relevant Technology
Optical fibers are now commonly used for voice and data transmission lines. Optical fiber bundles are usually laid in conduiting to protect the fibers whether passing through underground channels or within buildings. Lengths of plastic conduit are provided coupled together by push-in tube coupling. The fiber is delivered through the conduiting by high pressure air which acts on a roughened surface of the fiber and draws the fibers through the conduiting. Once the fiber has been laid in the conduiting, it is desirable to be able to create a seal between the coupling and fiber to prevent passage of gas along the conduiting. Gas can enter the conduiting from a leak in the ground outside a building and if it is allowed to enter the conduiting and travel into the building to which the conduiting leads, there is a risk of a gas build up and possible explosion. There is therefore a need to isolate the interior of the conduit leading into the building from the rest of the conduit.
EP-A-0363188 discloses a tube coupling for connecting conduiting in which an optical fiber is laid. The coupling includes a complex form seal located in the coupling having end portions to receive and seal with conduit ends inserted into the coupling and a central section which can be displaced as air pressure to allow passage of an optical fiber through the coupling and which springs back to engage the tube once the air pressure is released. With this arrangement it is difficult to ensure an effective reliable seal with the fibre.

Tube couplings for connecting a pair of conduits for carrying a cable


In a power supply unit disposed below a floor behind a seat, battery modules are disposed in a lower position, and a DC/DC converter and a motor driving inverter are disposed side by side in a vehicle width direction above the battery modules. Thus, cooling air flowing from the front side to the rear side of a vehicle body is divided into upper and lower portions to cool in parallel the DC/DC converter and the motor driving inverter on the upper side and the battery modules on the lower side. Thus, it is possible to simplify a passage of the cooling air to reduce the size of the entire power supply unit, and improve mountability of the power supply unit on the vehicle body. Also, it is possible to apply low temperature cooling air, before heat exchange, to the battery module, the DC/DC converter, and the motor driving inverter.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical device cooling structure in a vehicle, comprising: an electrical device which includes a battery for driving a motor for traveling, a DC/DC converter and a motor driving inverter, the electrical device being disposed below a floor behind a seat, and cooled by cooling air.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2003-45392 discloses a device in which a power supply device including a battery that drives a motor for traveling of an automobile is mounted in a trunk room behind a rear seat, and the battery is cooled by cooling air supplied by a forced air fan provided integrally with the power supply device.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-153827 discloses a device in which a capacitor including a battery that drives a motor for traveling of an automobile, a DC/DC converter, a motor driving inverter, a cooling fan, and the like is disposed below a rear seat, and the battery, the DC/DC converter, and the motor driving inverter are cooled by cooling air sucked by a cooling fan.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2003-45392 discloses that the battery of the power supply device is cooled by the cooling air supplied by the forced air fan, but does not disclose cooling of a DC/DC converter and a motor driving inverter included in the power supply device.
In Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-153827, the battery, the DC/DC converter, the motor driving inverter, and the cooling fan are disposed in series in a vehicle width direction, and the battery, the DC/DC converter, and the motor driving inverter are sequentially cooled by the cooling air sucked by the cooling fan.
In this device, the temperature of the cooling air is gradually increased by heat exchange during the cooling of the battery, the DC/DC converter, and the motor driving inverter. Therefore, even if the battery on an upstream side can be sufficiently cooled, there is a possibility that the motor driving inverter on a downstream side is not sufficiently cooled. Also, because the battery, the DC/DC converter, the motor driving inverter and the cooling fan are disposed in series, the size of the power supply device is increased to impose a limitation in mounting the power supply device on the vehicle. Further, because resistance is increased in the passage of the cooling air, a large and high-performance cooling fan is disadvantageously needed.

Electrical device cooling structure in vehicle


An all surface trampoline comprising a hollow inflatible support having an inner and an outer periphery and having an open space between the inner periphery, an elastic trampoline mat suspended over the open space, and wherein a suspension device includes two layers of material extending around the periphery of the support with the mat sandwiched therebetween. The suspension device also extends around the outer periphery of the support and a layer of resilient material is disposed between the suspension device and the support adjacent the outer edge of the mat.

The invention relates to a trampoline which is adapted to be used on all types of surfaces, including both land and water surfaces. In the past, trampolines have been designed for use either on land or water, thereby limiting their use. It is therefore desirable to provide a trampoline which can be used on many different surfaces to increase its versatility.
A pneumatic trampoline designed specifically for use on land or a hard surface is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,130,816. In this arrangement, the pneumatic tube is deformed upon impact of a person jumping on the upper wall of the device, and the tube subsequently rebounds to provide lift to the jumper.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,576,375 discloses a trampoline specifically designed for use on water. A pneumatic tube is used to support the trampoline on water, and a base cover is attached to the lower interior of the tube to seal off rapid air flow through the tube opening and create a substantially closed volume between the base cover and the water surface.
The above prior art devices cannot be successfully employed on surfaces other than that for which they are specifically designed, and accordingly, the use thereof is limited. A problem existing with each of the foregoing discussed patented trampolines is that there is no provision for release of air pressure existing on the underside of the trampoline mat which is generated by jumpers using the trampoline. This air pressure will tend to distort the devices and cause them to move laterally. This of course will cause undesirable wear and tear on the bottom of a trampoline supported on land or other hard surface. In the case of a trampoline supported on water, water turbulence and waves will be generated thereby making the trampoline unstable.
A problem with constructions such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,576,375 and our copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/730,482, filed Jul. 16, 1991 is that they employ relatively heavy metallic components. These metallic components make the construction more expensive, and the weight of the metallic components increases the cost of transporting the device from one location to another. The metallic components also present a safety hazard since a jumper may be injured if he accidentally comes into contact with such components. Furthermore, assembly and disassembly of these constructions are difficult and time-consuming.


A pin/socket contact is made from two contact parts, namely, a pin/socket member and a tail/coupling member. The pin/socket member has a blind bore therein for receiving a stub portion on the tail/coupling member. Burrs on the stub portion hold the tail/coupling and pin/socket members together. The pin/socket member can be standardized and inventoried in large quantities to be assembled to a variety of tail/coupling members in which the tail portion is in the form of a PC tail, wire wrap adaptor or a compliant adapter.

Electronic devices have become commonplace in most equipment on the ground from automobiles to telecommunications equipment as well as equipment in the air such as planes, missiles and satellites. Society has become accustomed to more innovative consumer products year after year, such as televisions, cell phones, fax machines, desk and lap top computers, to name a few, which products have proliferated over the last couple of decades and have become common place in our society. Such equipment or devices may have hundreds or even thousands of electrical connections that must be made between electronic circuit boards, bus wiring, wiring harnesses and input and output ports to provide the electrical connector pathways or highways needed to transport electrical signals needed for the electronic circuitry. The art of electrical connectors and contacts is very old and hundreds of different connectors have evolved throughout the last century. A few examples of connectors designed, in particular, to meet the needs of modern electronics are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,492,489 entitled "Four Way Audio Cable Adapter" to Chavakula (1996); U.S. Pat. No. 3,149,899 entitled "Electrical Contact Element" to Johanson (1962); U.S. Pat. No. 3,832,498 entitled "Aapter Enabling Telephone Switching Equipment Terminals To Be Wire Wrapped" to Lawson (1974); U.S. Pat. No. 4,090,771 entitled "Contact Assembly With Rotational Lock For Wire Wrap Termination" issued to Moulin (1978); U.S. Pat. No. 5,387,138 entitled "Printed Circuit Connector Apparatus and Method for Making the Same" to O'Malley (1995); U.S. Pat. No. 5,106,328 entitled "Contact Pin And Bushing Assembly" to Prochaska et al. (1992), and U.S. Pat. No. 5,439,391 entitled "Lead Adapter" to McEtchin et al. (1995).
Today with electrical component shrinking to unprecedented miniature sizes, connectors have followed suit and much effort is being placed in the area of connector technology to develop small scale connectors in mass quantities necessary to reliably make the many connections needed for densely populated electronic environments. In particular, pin and socket type connectors have gained popularity in the electronics industry and much effort has been made to make an improved pin/socket contacts. Such pin/socket contacts are very versatile and come in different configurations for connection to wires, circuit boards etc. For example, conventional pin/socket contacts typically have connection arrangements known in the industry as "tails" which take various shapes for use in a variety of circumstances such as square tails for wire wrapping, round tails for coupling to circuit board, or compliant tails for direct circuit board connections. Typically, the contacts are made of one piece. Therefore, for each particular size of pin or socket three separate contacts would be required to accommodate the three popular tail configurations, i.e., square, round and compliant. As a result, manufacturers or contact suppliers need to inventory a large number of contacts to satisfy the needs of customers requiring different tail configurations. In addition, there is the element of time to configure automatic screw machines to make the several different configurations.
The prior art has disclosed several two piece contact arrangements. However, such two piece contacts have not proven to be satisfactory for a number of reasons including material and manufacturing costs.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,569,918 entitled "Multipiece Electrical Contact" to Arnold (1971) shows a contact having an cylindrically shaped insulating sleeve with a hole therethrough, one end to the insulator receiving a pin and the other end receiving a conductor. The sleeve accordingly provides the vehicle to couple the two metal contact portions together. Tails have also been coupled to a pin/socket contact by screwing the two together as illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,210,720 entitled "Cable Connectors" to Harris (1961) which discloses a connector for use with high duty electrical cable, such cable being formed of one or more conductors, each of which embodies a plurality or strands, sheathed with filler strips and ground wires. The connector attached to the cable may be either a male member or a female member which in either case include a similar cylindrical section having at one end, a blind bore for receiving the end of the high duty electrical cable and at the other end provided with screw threads to threadably receive the corresponding threaded shank of either the female adapter of the male adapter, as the case may be. While this arrangement may be satisfactory for contacts that are not needed in mass quantities, it is not desirable for the vast array consumer electronics where quantities and cost are important factors.
Another example of a pin contact is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 5,399,110 entitled "Two Piece Male Terminal" to Morello et al. (1995) which includes a pin contact member and an attachment member which will ultimately receive a conventional insulated copper wire. The pin contact has a clamping portion at the rear end thereof, which clamping portion is swaged to define a post extending radially outwardly of the outer surface of the clamping portion. The attachment member has a slot which receives the post which is rolled onto the clamping portion. The post is coined to define a flange which engages the attachment member at locations surrounding the slot to securely retain the attachment member to the contact member. This arrangement requires a considerable amount of mechanical manipulation and is therefore undesirable where small size, cost and quantities are important. There is still a need for a pin/socket contact that is simple and inexpensive to manufacture, yet reliable in performance.

Tri-Star Electronics International, Inc.


A cryogenic rectification system for the separation of feed air wherein at least some of the feed air is liquefied upstream of the separation columns, all of the liquefied feed air is introduced into a higher pressure column, and then a portion of this liquefied feed air is withdrawn from the higher pressure column and in serial fashion introduced into a lower pressure column.

Oxygen and nitrogen are produced commercially in large quantities by the cryogenic rectification of feed air, such as in a double column system wherein the product is taken from the lower pressure column. At times it may be desirable to produce the product at a pressure which exceeds its pressure when taken from the lower pressure column. In such instances, gaseous oxygen may be compressed to the desired pressure. However, it is generally preferable for capital cost purposes to remove the product as liquid from the lower pressure column, pump it to a higher pressure, and then vaporize the pressurized liquid to produce the desired elevated pressure product gas.
In such a system, generally termed a product boiling system, the liquid is vaporized in a product boiler by indirect heat exchange with a condensing fluid, typically pressurized feed air. The resulting liquid feed air is then passed into the cryogenic air separation plant for separation. Two liquid feed air arrangements are known. In one arrangement, all of the liquid feed air is passed into the higher pressure column wherein it undergoes cryogenic rectification. In another arrangement, the liquid feed air is divided into a first portion, which is passed into the higher pressure column, and into a second portion which is passed into the lower pressure column. The latter arrangement is preferred because it enables the cryogenic rectification plant to operate more efficiently due to judicious distribution of the incoming liquid feed air among the columns.
The cryogenic rectification of feed air, especially for the production of elevated pressure gaseous product, is an energy intensive operation and any improvement in energy efficiency is desirable.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a system for the cryogenic rectification of feed air wherein at least some of the feed air is liquefied prior to entering the column or columns of the cryogenic air separation plant, which has improved efficiency over heretofore available such systems.

Cryogenic rectification system with serial liquid air feed


A method for producing window components using polymer based, metallurgy based, extruded, injection molded, or wood material is provided. This invention provides a low cost, highly reliable, low defect method of producing window components by machining from a singular piece of material, providing bendable portions, with angled portions adapted to fit together to define a wide range of window shapes and sizes.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the manufacture of window systems. More specifically, this invention relates to the manufacture of window systems using polymer based or metallurgy based component parts.
2. Description of Related Art
A variety of methods and processes for the construction of window system assemblies have been proposed. Typically, these prior methods and processes require costly, complex, inconsistent, error and waste prone, susceptible to defects manufacturing steps. Generally, these prior methods and processes require a large number of pieces of equipment and skilled craftsmen. For general background, the reader is directed to the following United States patent Nos., each of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety for the material contained therein: U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,037,611, 2,047,835, 2,219,594, 2,781,111, 2,952,342, 3,074,772, 3,087,207, 3,287,041, 3,305,998, 3,315,431, 3,327,766, 3,348,353, 3,376,670, 3,484,126, 3,802,105, 3,854,248, 4,269,255, 4,327,142, 4,407,100, 4,460,737, 4,597,232, 4,941,288, 5,155,956, 5,189,841, 5,491,940, 5,540,019, 5,555,684, 5,585,155, 5,603,585, 5,620,648, 5,622,017, 5,799,453, 5,901,509, 6,047,514 and 6,073,412. The reference to related U.S. patent documents is not an admission of prior art, as the inventor's date of invention may predate the date of filing and/or publication of these references.

Method and process of a universal window system using singular advanced components of a polymer based or metallurgy based product


Provided is an image forming apparatus that can keep the character of a concealing area secret certainly even if it makes low the printing rate of a see-through preventive image. A concealing area specifying part specifies the concealing area that includes a concealing character string in the print data. A character discriminating part discriminates character attribute of the concealing character string. A see-through preventive image generation part sets the see-through preventing area where shape and a size are the same as the concealing area. Also, see-through preventive image generation part generates a see-through preventive image where multiple characters having the character attribute discriminated by the character discriminating part are generated at random. A printing part prints the see-through preventive image in the position piled up by the same direction for the concealing area at the time of enclosure.

The present disclosure is related with an image forming apparatus and an image forming method that has function to perform printing for preventing a see-through to aback surface of a recording paper.
When enclosing an envelope the recording paper with which printing is performed by an image forming apparatus, such as an MFP (Multifunction Peripheral) and a copying machine, printing matter performed to the recording paper may be looked through from outside of the envelope. In order to prevent this see-through, a technology is proposed that specifies a concealing area from the read image data and prints a see-through preventive image that prevents the see-through on the back surface of a concealing area or on the surface of the recording paper piled up with the concealing area at the time of enclosure.

Image forming apparatus and image forming method have print function to prevent see-through


A rotation angle of a shaft is detected based on changes in levels of magnetic flux from a single magnet that is mounted on the shaft and is moved axially in accordance with rotation of the shaft. Respective detected variations in level of X-direction and Y-direction magnetic flux components (each at right angles to the shaft axis) are used to obtain a first quantity that varies monotonically, and a second quantity that varies periodically, in accordance with increased rotation angle. An accurate value of the shaft rotation angle is calculated based on the first and second quantities, in combination.

1. Field of Application
The present invention relates to a rotation angle detection apparatus that detects a degree of rotation of a rotary shaft from a reference angular position. In particular, the invention relates to a rotation angle detection apparatus which incorporates a magnet and in which the degree of rotation is detected based on changes in detected levels of magnetic flux.
2. Description of Related Art
Types of rotation angle detection apparatus are known in the prior art, which detect changes in rotation angle of magnets by utilizing magnetic sensors, and thereby detect amounts of change in rotation angle of a rotary shaft. A rotary shaft whose angular position is to be detected by such an apparatus will be referred to as the "output rotary shaft". A type of rotation angle detection apparatus that enables detection of amounts of rotation angle (from a reference angular position) that exceed 360° has been described for example in Japanese patent publication number 2002-213910 (referred to in the following as reference document 1). Such a type of rotation angle detection apparatus will be designated in the following as an "over-360° rotation angle detection apparatus" in the following.
With the over-360° rotation angle detection apparatus described in reference document 1, two shafts carrying respective magnets engage respectively independently with an output rotary shaft (i.e., whose angular position is to be measured), and the respective rotation angles of the two magnet shafts are detected by corresponding magnetic sensors. Two rotation angle detection signals are thereby produced by these magnetic sensor,
With the apparatus of reference document 1, a first one of the rotation angle detection signals is a signal that varies monotonically over an entire range of measurement of the angular positions of the output rotary shaft. The second rotation angle detection signal varies in a periodic manner (i.e. successively changing by increasing from a minimum value to a maximum value) as the rotation angle of the output rotary shaft is successively increased throughout the measurement range, with a plurality of variation periods of the second rotation angle detection signal occurring over the measurement range.
Calculations are performed on the respective rotation angle detection signals from the two magnetic sensors, to obtain values of amounts of rotation of the output rotary shaft that exceed 360°.
However such a type of rotation angle detection apparatus is known to exhibit a lowering of detection accuracy as a result of the effects of temperature variations and of long-term usage. For that reason it has been proposed in Japanese patent publication number 2005-55297 (referred to in the following as reference document 2) to utilize a temperature detector to apply temperature compensation to a rotation angle detection apparatus of the type described in reference document 1. In addition it has been proposed in Japanese patent publication number 2004-53444 (referred to in the following as reference document 3) to store information beforehand, for the purpose of applying compensation for the effects of long-term usage to a rotation angle detection apparatus of the type described in reference document 1.
However such types of prior art rotation angle detection apparatus require the addition of temperature sensor elements (in the case of methods which apply temperature compensation), thereby increasing the overall cost of such an apparatus. In the case of an apparatus in which compensation is applied for the effects of long-term variations, actual changes in component characteristics as a result of long-term usage may vary substantially from predicted changes, due to the effects of manufacturing variations in the component characteristics, etc.
Hence, such prior art types of apparatus have the disadvantage of unreliability with respect to long-terminal accuracy of measurement. In addition, they require the use of a plurality of magnets and a mechanism which drives the magnets respectively separately for rotation, and so have the disadvantage of a relatively complex configuration, resulting in further increases in manufacturing costs.

Rotation angle detection apparatus enabling measurement of degree of rotation of a shaft that exceeds 360°


A method and system for power saving in a wireless LAN is disclosed, which uses the method of modifying the beacon frame body or broadcasting the schedule information frame. The medium access behavior of each station during the contention free period (CFP) and the contention period (CP) can be dynamically re-programmed. Therefore, the stations that should access the radio medium can only wake up at the specific access time to send or receive the packet and re-enters its power-saving state after the data transmission.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the technical field of wireless local area network (WLAN) and, more particularly, to a method and system for power saving in a WLAN.
2. Description of Related Art
In the recent years, the IEEE 802.11 wireless local area network (WLAN) has become attractive and popular in the market, due to the benefits of low cost in the network deployment, high bandwidth, and lower technical complexity. The existing Internet applications and service in the application layer can be directly used since the design of IEEE 802.11 WLAN follows the protocol stack of IEEE project-802 standards. For example, the voice over IP (VoIP) service runs in the application layer of user's device to provide the audio service no matter the medium access control (MAC) of data link layer is 802.3 (Ethernet) MAC or 802.11 MAC. For the device that runs VoIP service in the application layer and uses the IEEE 802.11 WLAN as the radio access technology to provide the inexpensive wireless audio service, the requirement of low power consumption in this device becomes a very important issue. The operating time (battery-life per charge) of the user device can be increased if the mechanism of MAC protocol can efficiently save the power.
The IEEE 802.11 WLAN standards had specified the operation of power management. The power-saving mode in the IEEE 802.11 WLAN uses the mechanism of traffic indication map (TIM) to save the power. However, the mechanism of TIM in the IEEE 802.11 standard cannot effectively save the power during the active period.
There are two kinds of the basic network architecture in the IEEE 802.11 WLAN, namely infrastructure WLAN and ad hoc WLAN. In the infrastructure WLAN, there are some access points (APs) in the network. FIG. 1 shows an infrastructure power management operation without point coordination function (PCF). As shown, the AP periodically broadcasts the beacon frame at the start of beacon interval. The power save stations (PS-STAs) that are in sleeping state may periodically wake up to receive the specific beacon frames. Each beacon frame includes the TIM field to indicate those PS-STAs that some packets for the specific PS-STAs are buffered in the AP. The PS-STAs should keep waking up during the remaining beacon interval period to wait for the AP's polling messages during the contention free period (CFP) when that the received traffic indicator bit in the bitmap control sub-field of TIM field is set to 1. In addition, since the broadcast packets or the multicast packets are indicated through the beacon frame with the delivery TIM (DTIM) message, the PS-STAs may wake up at that time to avoid losing the broadcast or multicast packet. FIG. 1 shows that the STA B lost the broadcast frame.
According to the above descriptions, the PS-STAs should keep awake during the remaining beacon interval period to wait for the AP's polling messages whenever they receive its traffic indicator bit in the bitmap control sub-field of TIM field being set to 1. However, this scheme still wastes the energy on unnecessarily monitoring the radio medium, and thus it is not satisfactory in saving the power.
FIG. 2 illustrated the basic power-saving operation in an independent basic service set (IBBS) of an ad hoc WLAN. In an ad hoc WLAN, the PS-STAs periodically wake up at almost the same time and keep awake for a period, namely ad hoc TIM (ATIM) window. In order to synchronize the timing with each other, every PS-STA contends for sending a beacon frame at the start of each beacon interval and the first successful beacon transmission restrains the other STAs from transmitting their beacon frames. Any STA that wants to transmit the data can deliver an ATIM frame to the destination during the ATIM window after the beacon frame. The destination PS-STA must be awake and reply an ACK frame during the ATIM window. After the two-way handshaking, the source PS-STA and the destination PS-STA must keep awake during the remaining beacon interval. The source PS-STA would transmit the data by using the carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) protocol after the ATIM window (during the remaining beacon interval).
According to the descriptions mentioned above, the source PS-STA and destination PS-STA should keep awake during the remaining beacon interval period to finish the data transmission. However, this scheme still wastes the energy on unnecessarily contending or monitoring the radio medium, and thus it is not satisfactory in efficiently saving power.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,560,021 discloses a power-saving mechanism that is similar to the traditional IEEE 802.11 WLAN. The network establishes a plurality of recurring time intervals, and each time interval has a first portion during which all user devices are in the active mode of operation and a second portion for communication of packet data. The user device having data to transmit should transmit an indicator signal in the first portion. On the other hand, the user device should remain in an active mode of operation if the received indicator signal is addressed for receiving a fragment of a packet of data. However, in the second portion of time interval, the source and destination device need to be in the active mode, which may consume lots of power.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,625,882 discloses an awake counter mechanism to determine whether a user device enters the sleep mode of operation or not. Before entering the sleep mode, the user device selects a synchronization signal rate of 2x, where x is 0<x<8. The user device in sleep mode transfers from the sleep mode of operation to the active mode of operation in order to monitor the synchronization signal's content. The user device enters the active mode of operation if the synchronization signal indicates the request of packet transmission. In this mechanism, each user device needs to be in the active mode for a period no matter the packet transmission has finished, and thus the power consumption cannot be efficiently reduced. Therefore, there is a need to have a novel design of power-saving in the wireless local area network that can mitigate and/or obviate the aforementioned problems.

Method and system for power-saving in a wireless local area network

Industrial Technology Research Institute


An effervescent compound is disclosed which includes a liquid ingredient, an effervescent system and optionally a solvent. The solvent may be either hydrophobic or hydrophilic, and may have low solubility with effervescent ingredients. The solvent may include an alcohol, a glycol or a glycol ether, for example, but not limited to, 2-butoxyethanol. The effervescent system used in the effervescent compound may be, for example, but not limited to, an expanded perborate salt, anhydrous, or a mixture of an expanded perborate salt, anhydrous, and oxoborate or an acid and one or more of sodium bicarbonate, sodium carbonate, potassium bicarbonate and potassium carbonate. The effervescent compound may further include any one, or all, or any combination of the following ingredients: surfactants, bleaching compositions, anti-redeposition agents, binders, lubricants, colors, fragrances, corrosion inhibitors, disinfectants, pesticides, fertilizers and/or optical brighteners. Further disclosed is a method of producing the expanded perborate salt, anhydrous. Also disclosed is a method for making an effervescent compound, including the steps of providing a solvent, providing an effervescent system in powder form, and mixing the solvent with the effervescent system, thereby producing a free-flowing effervescent compound. The method disclosed may also include the steps of compressing the effervescent compound, and then forming either granules or a tablet.

The present invention is generally related to effervescent products, and, more particularly, is related to effervescent products including perborate salts, and to a method for producing same.
One major limitation in effervescent cleaning, disinfecting, or other products was the amount and type of liquid and active ingredients that could be incorporated into effervescent formulations. Generally, less than 25% by weight of an effervescent formulation in the form of a tablet or effervescent granules was available for active ingredients. Typically, surfactants, e.g., anionic, nonionic, cationic and amphoteric surfactants, could be used at no more than 5% of the effervescent formulas because these ingredients reduced the storage stability of carbonate-based effervescent products, made conventional granulation or tableting difficult or impossible, and dramatically increased the dissolution time of the resulting products. If greater than 5% by weight surfactants was used, then it usually became necessary to use disintegrants to enable dissolution of the composition.
Generally, solvents were incompatible with effervescent products. They were either very hydrophobic and were incompatible with aqueous systems, or were sufficiently hydrophilic to initiate the effervescent reaction, thus making the product unstable. Many surfactants were available only as liquids containing water or alcohol and could not be employed at any useful level in effervescent formulas. Previously, solvents were primarily used in effervescent tablet production for wet granulation and were evaporated in order to produce a finished tablet.
As noted previously, in typical effervescent tablets, less than 25% by weight of the tablet was usually available for ingredients other than the effervescent system. For example, although up to 75% by weight of the tablet weight could be a binder, only about 10% to 25% was typically used. The effervescent system typically accounted for up to 50% of the tablet. It should be noted that the more of the effervescent system that was used, the quicker the tablet dissolved, but less of the tablet was available for other desired ingredients. Lubricants, which help in tablet production, comprised up to approximately 10% by weight of the conventional tablet. Fragrance and color made approximately 2% of the tablet. It was found in conventional tablets that higher levels of fragrance adversely affected tablet stability, dissolution, hardness and tablet production.
One solution has been to replace the typical carbonate-based system with anhydrous perborate salt. The use of sodium perborate anhydrous in non-aqueous liquid-built detergent compositions is disclosed in Great Britain Patent Number GB-A-No. 1,205,711 (the ""711 patent). The ""711 patent, though, gives no further details are given of what is exactly meant by sodium perborate, anhydrous, and does not address improved dispersibility of the detergent in the wash water by addition of sodium perborate anhydrous.
Anhydrous perborate has also been noted as a potential effervescent system, which upon contact with water provides oxygen gas. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,772,412 (the ""412 patent), issued to Green, et al., discloses a process for making an anhydrous perborate that can be used in non-aqueous liquid detergents.
Effervescent compounds have been developed that include anhydrous perborate salts for the purpose of improving the dispensing or dissolution of detergent compositions into the washing water or for improvement of the delivery of the detergent actives of the composition to the wash or for improved sudsing. See, for example, Patent Cooperation Treaty Application Number US99/10008, International Publication Number WO 99/58444 (the 10008 application) and Patent Cooperation Treaty Application Number US99/10007, International Publication Number WO 99/58632 (the 10007 application). However, the 10008 application provides that the anhydrous perborate salt be intimately mixed with a diluent, which could be a process that would add time and cost to the manufacture of the end product detergent. Further, the mixture of the anhydrous perborate salt and diluent is either dehydrated, or the solvent of the non-aqueous diluent is dried, further adding to the time and cost of producing the end product detergent. Additionally, depending on the conditions of the dehydration of the hydrated perborate salt, or the drying process of the diluent, certain amounts of hydrated perborate salt may be present in the product of the 10008 application, which limits the product to uses where bleaching action is acceptable.
In addition to the diluent that may be mixed with the anhydrous perborate salt, the 10007 Application provides that the anhydrous perborate salt be coated with a coating material in order to improve its stability. While this relieves the need for incorporation of high levels of perborate, monohydrate, it adds a further step to the production of the detergent compound, thereby increasing time and cost of the manufacture, as well as the weight and size of the end product detergent particles.
One conventional form of sodium perborate, anhydrous (oxoborate) is manufactured by and commercially available from Degussa-Hxc3xcills AG in Frankfurt, Germany. It can be produced as described in European Patent Number EU0053859, generally by application of heat to a hydrated perborate salt, and under vacuum so as to draw off immediately any vapor released upon the application of heat. The commercially available oxoborate effervesces, but is difficult to use in tablets without the addition of additives. See U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,409,118 and 4,857,224. When loaded with solvents or liquid ingredients, the oxoborate begins to clump when the solvents or liquid ingredients comprise about 60% of its weight. The oxoborate becomes a paste at higher levels of loading with solvents or liquid ingredients.
Thus, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the industry to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.
The present invention provides both an effervescent system and a carrier for liquid ingredients to be used in effervescent compounds and a method for making a carrier for liquid ingredients to be used in effervescent compounds. Briefly described, the carrier is an expanded perborate salt anhydrous (EPB) which is both an effervescent material and a carrier that can be loaded with up to 1.2 times its weight with a solvent or liquid ingredient in which may be dissolved many different materials. The EPB remains a free-flowing dry powder suitable for incorporation into effervescent tablets, granules or powders.
Further, the present invention can also be viewed as providing a method for producing the EPB. The method includes the steps of heating a perborate salt monohydrate at a temperature and for an amount of time to produce the expanded perborate salt, anhydrous.
The present invention can also be viewed as providing for effervescent compounds incorporating EPB, and a method for making the effervescent compounds. In this regard, the method can be broadly summarized by the following steps: providing a solvent or liquid ingredient; providing an effervescent system, including EPB, in powder form; and mixing the solvent or liquid ingredient with the effervescent system, thereby producing a free-flowing effervescent compound. Alternative embodiments of the present invention include the further steps of dissolving ingredient(s) in a solvent or liquid ingredient and mixing the resulting solution with the effervescent system thereby producing a free-flowing effervescent compound. Further, the method may include compressing the effervescent compound and forming granules of the effervescent compound. In an alternative embodiment, the method may also include compressing the effervescent compound and forming a tablet from the effervescent compound.
Other methods, features, and advantages of the present invention will be or become apparent to one with skill in the art upon examination of the following detailed description and figure. It is intended that all such additional methods, features, and advantages be included within this description, be within the scope of the present invention, and be protected by the accompanying claims.

Expanded perborate salt, use, and method of production


A new Magnolia plant variety, ‘Centennial Blush’, is provided. ‘Centennial Blush’ is a new and distinct cultivar of the plant Magnolia stellata, which is characterized by dense conical pyramidal habit, large 12 to 14 cm wide flowers composed of 46 tepals, flower bud development at most nodes resulting in heaviest flowering of any known varieties of Magnolia stellata, and ability to set numerous flower buds as a 2 to 3-year-old plant.

The present invention relates to the discovery of a new and distinct cultivar of the plant Magnolia stellata, hereafter referred to as 'Centennial Blush', as herein described and illustrated.
The new Magnolia plant originated from open-pollinated seed of 'Centennial' (unpatented). The original plant is a conical-pyramidal, full flower plant about 10 years old and 3.6 m by 1.8 m in size. The seedlings were planted in containers and selections were made in March 2010 at former College Station Hydrangea Garden in College Station, Tex.
Asexual reproduction by traditional cuttings has shown that the distinguishing characteristics of this new variety 'Centennial Blush' are stable and reproduced true-to-type in successive generations.

University of Georgia Research Foundation, Inc.


A latching interface is provided between a machine and a monitoring or control system for the machine to latch the machine in a mode that is safe for the machine and for operating personnel upon power loss. The interface includes one or more latching relay switches, connected into one or more input signal circuits, that may be selectively set and reset by an interface microprocessor to actuate or deactuate the machine from performing certain functions. The interface microprocessor is programmable to set or reset the latching relay switches in response to a signal from a power loss sensor indicating that power to a monitor/controller device, that monitors and controls the functions of the machine, has been interrupted. The interface system further includes a power feed circuit to provide a back-up power supply to power the interface microprocessor during setting and resetting of the latching relay switches to the safe mode upon loss of normal power. Alternately, a solid state switch in series with an additional latching relay switch is connected into the input signal circuit in parallel with one or more of the latching relay switches. During normal operations, the interface microprocessor may operate these solid state switches in response to signals from the monitor/controller to control normal operating modes or functions of the machine. Upon power loss, the interface microprocessor opens the latching relay switch in series with each solid state switch and operates the parallel latching relay switch to place and keep the machine in a safe operating mode.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to electrical controls for machinery and processes and more specifically to a method and apparatus for locking electrical control states automatically upon loss of electric power.
2. State of the Prior Art
Many machines and industrial equipment have functions that are monitored or controlled by electronic controls comprising microprocessors that monitor signals, physical conditions, or time and, in response to the presence or absence of such signals, physical conditions, or time, generate control signals to actuate or deactuate functions of the machines or industrial equipment according to some program, logic, or algorithm. The machines or industrial equipment respond to the presence or absence of such control signals to either initiate and perform some functions or to stop performance of some functions. For example, many conventional plastic injection molding machines have mechanisms that, upon sensing an electrical signal, start and continue through a cycle of closing a mold, filling the mold with liquid or molten plastic, cooling the mold to allow the plastic to harden into a hard plastic part, open the mold, and eject the hard plastic part out of the mold. A monitoring system senses whether the hard plastic part has been successfully and completely ejected from the mold before the injection molding machine is allowed to close the mold again and to proceed with the cycle to make another plastic part, because mistakenly closing the mold on a partially ejected hard plastic part that has not been cleared from the mold can cause severe and costly damage to the mold.
Loss of electrical power in such monitoring systems can leave control signals for such machines or equipment in undesirable and perhaps even unsafe states. For example, in the plastic injection molding machines described above, a power loss in the monitoring system could leave an output signal in a state that allows the injection molding machine to close the mold, even if a hard plastic part has not been successfully ejected and cleared from the mold, which, as mentioned above, can cause severe and costly damage to the mold.
There are many kinds of equipment and control schemes available to provide myriad degrees of protection against undesired consequences in electric power loss situations for various applications. For example, some equipment incorporates a power down cycle in which the equipment senses a power-off request signal from a switch actuated by an operator and, in response, takes the time to run through a series of steps to put itself in a safe state before actually turning off the power via an electronic device. However, if electric power is disconnected or lost to such equipment unexpectedly, such as a power line failure, its outputs may be left in undefined states that might be dangerous to related equipment or to operators.
In another approach, plug-in output modules have been used with equipment, which modules can be selected to have a desired combination of normally-opened and/or normally-closed states in the absence of power to provide safe conditions in the equipment. This approach, however, lacks flexibility. If the equipment is used in a different application where such combination of normally-opened and/or normally-closed states yields unsafe or undesired conditions, the equipment would have to be re-wired with a new set of modules.
Still another approach used in some monitoring or control devices has been to use a power-fail output from the monitoring or control devices to "warn" companion equipment that are being monitored or controlled that the monitoring or control devices are not functional. Then, it is left to the equipment that was being monitored or controlled to fend for itself, whether it be to continue functioning automatically or to shut-down in response to such "warning."
Yet other equipment have been designed and built to be inherently fail-safe regardless of the outputs from associated monitoring or control devices. However, such equipment that is specially designed to deal with unexpected or improper outputs from associated monitoring or control devices are probably more expensive than would be needed if another solution was available for power loss situations.

Power-loss interlocking interface method and apparatus


Provided are a gas storage structure and a gas storage apparatus including the gas storage structure. The gas storage structure includes a gas storage part including an opening thereon and an entrance control part disposed on the opening and including a gate.

The present invention disclosed herein relates to a gas storage structure and a gas storage apparatus including the same.
A gaseous material is widely used in various industry fields such as an energy industry. In particular, the next generation energy development using the gaseous material is being spotlighted due to exhaustion of the fossil energy. Thus, researches with respect to the next generation energy development are being actively progressed.
However, it is difficult to store and/or use the gaseous material due to various characteristics of a gaseous state. For example, in case where a material exists in the gaseous state, it is difficult to store and control the material due to their great volume.

Gas storage structure and gas storage apparatus including the same

Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute


Method of forming different diffusion aluminide coatings on different surface regions of the same superalloy substrate involves positioning the substrate in a coating chamber having a aluminum-bearing coating gas flowing therein with a first substrate surface region enclosed in a masking enclosure having one or more coating gas entrance apertures communicating the interior of the enclosure to the coating gas in the coating chamber and with a second substrate surface region freely communicated to the coating gas in the coating chamber, and gas phase aluminizing the substrate by heating the substrate to an elevated coating temperature in the coating chamber having the coating gas therein to concurrently form an outwardly-grown diffusion aluminide coating on the first substrate surface region and to form an inwardly-grown, diffusion aluminide coating on the second substrate surface region of the same substrate.

Advancements in propulsion technologies have required gas turbine engines to operate at higher temperatures. This increase in operating temperature has required concomitant advancements in the operating temperatures of metallic (e.g. nickel and cobalt base superalloy) turbine engine components to withstand oxidation and hot corrosion in service. Inwardly grown platinum modified (platinum-bearing) diffusion aluminide coatings have been formed on superalloy turbine engine components to meet these higher temperature requirements. One such inwardly grown platinum modified diffusion coating is formed by chemical vapor deposition using aluminide halide coating gas and comprises an inward diffusion zone and an outer two phase [PtAl2+(Ni,Pt)Al] layer. The two phase Pt modified diffusion aluminide coatings are relatively hard and brittle and have been observed to be sensitive to thermal mechanical fatigue (TMF) cracking in gas turbine engine service.
Outwardly grown, single phase platinum modified (platinum-bearing) diffusion aluminide coatings also have been formed on superalloy turbine engine components to meet these higher temperature requirements. One such outwardly grown platinum modified diffusion coating is formed by chemical vapor deposition using a low activity aluminide halide coating gas as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,658,614; 5,716,720; 5,989,733; and 5,788,823 and comprises an inward diffusion zone and an outer (additive) single phase (Ni,Pt)Al layer.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,589,668 describes a method of forming a Pt-free outwardly-grown, single phase diffusion aluminide coating on an airfoil of a gas turbine engine blade and a graded platinum, outwardly grown, single phase diffusion aluminide coating on damper pocket surfaces using multiple aluminum sources in a coating chamber.


The saddle bag bucket carrier is constructed from a one piece blank cut from a sheet of rubber material. The blank has a central strip with a left end and a right end. A left front band portion and a left rear band portion are integral with the strip left end and have their free ends connected together by an adhesive to form a left bucket band with a left bucket receiving passage. A right front band portion and a right rear band portion are integral with the strip right end and have their free ends connected together by an adhesive to form a right bucket band with a right bucket receiving passage. Both bucket receiving passages are conical and receive buckets with frustoconical walls. The bucket bands have a vertical height that exceeds one-third the height of a bucket to be received.

Sportsmen such as ice fishermen need to carry fishing gear, ice augers, fish bait, food and drink for themselves and other equipment to keep them warm and dry while on the ice. If they are successful, they also need to carry fish off the ice. Frequently, ideal fishing locations are a substantial distance from where there is access to the ice.
Vehicles such as snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles are suitable for transportation on frozen lakes and streams. They are capable of transporting a person several miles in a short period of time. Unfortunately, their ability to carry cargo is very limited. Snowmobiles do not have a cargo compartment. All-terrain vehicles generally have a rack of some type that cargo can be tied to. Both snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles can pull a sled or small trailer. Operators of these vehicles generally prefer not to pull sleds or trailers on ice.
Ice fishermen use ice shanties while fishing to obtain protection from the elements. Some ice shanties are mounted on runners and can be pulled by a snowmobile like a sled. If an ice shanty is pulled by a snowmobile, another sled or trailer most likely would not be pulled.
Motorcycles, bicycles and some personal watercraft need to carry cargo at times. Various carriers can be obtained for use with such vehicles. Plastic buckets that hold five gallons or more are suitable containers for transporting a large variety of items used by sportsmen and others. Unfortunately, it is difficult to attach such buckets to vehicles.

Saddlebag bucket carrier and method of making


A first engaging member makes a first engagement with a first locking member to lock an edge guiding unit. A second engaging member makes a second engagement with a second locking member to lock the edge guiding unit. The first locking member is movable to a first retract position and a second retract position. When the first locking member moves to the first retract position, the second engagement is released in conjunction with a release of the first engagement, and when the first locking member moves to the second retract position, the first engagement is released while maintaining the second engagement.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording-medium storage device and an image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A recording-medium storage device (e.g., a paper feed tray) installed in an image forming apparatus is used to stack a recording medium (hereinafter, "paper") and feed the paper to the image forming apparatus such that an image is formed thereon. The recording-medium storage device implements a stacking position determining mechanism for a paper stack. The stacking position determining mechanism includes edge guiding units, viz., an end fence and a plurality of side fences. The side fences guide the lateral edges of the paper stack with respect to a feeding direction, while the end fence guides the rear edge of the paper stack with respect to the feeding direction. The stacking position determining mechanism enables a user to precisely determine the position of the paper stack thereby preventing image misalignment on the paper or incorrect feed timing of the paper.
Recently, a universal paper feed tray compatible to various paper sizes has become mainstream. Such a universal paper feed tray enables the user to stack paper of different paper sizes for image formation. Consequently, user-friendliness is a critical issue while using a universal paper feed tray.
Conventionally, there are two position determining mechanisms corresponding to standard paper sizes. One mechanism is a notching mechanism in which a notch engagement is provided at a position corresponding to each standard paper size. The other mechanism is a latching mechanism (free stop mechanism), as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2001-310824, in which a multiple latch engagement is provided for arbitrarily determining a position corresponding to the paper size. Generally, a conventional recording-medium storage device implements either one of the notching mechanism and the latching mechanism.
The notching mechanism suffices the needs of a user who mainly uses paper of standard paper sizes for image formation. However, the notching mechanism is not suitable for a professional user who uses paper of a free paper size. On the other hand, the latching mechanism is suitable for paper of standard paper sizes as well as a free paper size. Moreover, by using the latching mechanism, the user can reliably guide the edges of the paper stack. However, in that case, it is a requisite that the paper stack is neatly aligned to prevent problems such as image misalignment on the paper or incorrect feed timing of the paper.
Recently, a paper feed tray as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2006-188357, which automatically recognizes the paper size of the paper stack by detecting the position of each edge guiding unit, is being increasingly used. As the paper sizes recognizable by the paper feed tray increase, it becomes more necessary to precisely lock the edge guiding units at desired positions corresponding to the standard paper sizes. Thus, the notching mechanism is more effective in such a case. However, as described above, the notching mechanism is not suitable for determining the positions of the edge guiding units corresponding to a free paper size. That is, it is difficult to determine positions of the edge guiding units corresponding to the standard paper sizes as well as a free paper size. Moreover, even if the edge guiding units are locked at a position corresponding to any paper size, it is necessary to maintain high operability while locking the edge guiding units at a particular position or moving them to another position.

Recording-medium storage device and image forming apparatus


Method and apparatus on charges injection using piezo-ballistic-charges injection mechanism are provided for nonvolatile memory device. The device has a strain source, an injection filter, a tunneling gate, a ballistic gate, a charge storage region, a source, and a drain with a channel defined between the source and drain. The strain source permits piezo-effect in ballistic charges transport to enable the piezo-ballistic-charges injection mechanism. The injection filter permits transporting of charge carriers of one polarity type from the tunneling gate through the blocking material and the ballistic gate to the charge storage region while blocking the transport of charge carriers of an opposite polarity from the ballistic gate to the tunneling gate. The present invention further provides an energy band engineering method permitting the memory device be operated without suffering from disturbs, from dielectric breakdown, from impact ionization, and from undesirable RC effects.

Non-volatile semiconductor memory cells permitting charge storage capability are well known in the art. The charges are typically stored in a floating gate to define the states of a memory cell. One such non-volatile memory cell has been proposed in U.S. application Ser. No. 09/942,338, which is hereby incorporated by reference.
The present invention can best be understood with an understanding of how the memory cells in prior art are constructed and how they are operated.
FIG. 1 (prior art) shows a cell architecture 100, wherein there is a tunneling gate 10, a ballistic gate 12, a floating gate 14, a source 16 and a drain 18 with a channel 20 therebetween, and a body 22 in a substrate of a first conductivity type (e.g. p-type). The ballistic gate 12 can be also termed as grid gate. However, term "ballistic gate" is preferable due to its nature on passing ballistic charge, and is employed hereinafter. The source 16 and drain 18 are formed in the substrate and have a second conductivity type (e.g. n-type). The floating gate 14 is disposed over and insulated from the channel 20 by a floating gate dielectric 24. The ballistic gate 12 is disposed over and insulated from the floating gate 14 by a retention dielectric 26. Likewise, the tunneling gate 10 is disposed over and insulated from the ballistic gate 12 by a layer of tunneling dielectric 28. A dielectric filler 29 is disposed around floating gate 14 and having its top surface be coincident with the top surface of the ballistic gate 12.
Ballistic hot hole and hot electron are injected into floating gate of prior art memory cells for erase and program operations, respectively, through injection mechanism first illustrated in the tunnel emission amplifier (see Mead, "The Tunnel Emission Amplifier," Procedings of the IRE, vol. 48, pp. 359–361, 1960). FIG. 2A (prior art) illustrates the ballistic hot hole injection of such mechanism in together with the energy band diagram for regions from tunneling gate 10 to floating gate 14 along a vertical axis (not shown) in cell 100. The tunneling gate 10 is biased positively with respect to the ballistic gate 12 to permit holes 30 in the tunneling gate 10 to tunnel through a tunneling barrier having a valence band barrier height 32 between a valence band 10b of the tunneling gate 10 and a valence band 28b of the tunneling dielectric 28. These holes in the ballistic gate region 12 can transport at energy higher than the valence band 12b of that region with some of these holes being able to reach the interface between the ballistic gate 12 and the retention dielectric 26. When this positive bias is increased to a value such that those holes have energy higher than a hole barrier height 34 at the interface, the holes will be able to enter a valence band 26b of the retention dielectric region 26, making their way through that region and be collected on the floating gate 14. To complete the erase operation, a sufficient amount of holes must be injected onto the floating gate 14 to neutralize negative charges thereon.
The ballistic hot electron injection for programming prior art memory cell is done similarly to the ballistic hot hole injection except by reversing the bias polarity. Referring to FIG. 2B (prior art), the tunneling gate 10 is biased negatively with respect to the ballistic gate 12 to permit electrons 31 in the tunneling gate 10 to tunnel through the tunneling dielectric 28. These electrons in the ballistic gate region 12 can transport at energy higher than a conduction band 12a of that region with some of these electrons being able to reach the interface between the ballistic gate 12 and the retention dielectric 26, surmounting an electron barrier 35 and entering the floating gate 14.
The charge injection mechanism employed in prior art is the same mechanism illustrated for amplifier application (see Mead, "The Tunnel Emission Amplifier," Procedings of the IRE, vol. 48, pp. 359–361, 1960). However, there are several fundamental problems associated with the charge injection mechanism when such mechanism is employed for memory operation. Further, there are several problems in the prior art memory cell need to be considered.
Problems on Charge Injection Mechanism of Prior Art
It is known that there are various types of holes, namely the light-hole (LH) and the heavy-hole (HH), in semiconductors (e.g. Si, Ge, GaAs etc.). The light-hole has a lighter effective mass than the heavy-hole, and difference between them depends on the band structure of the valence sub-bands of semiconductors. Prior art did not distinguish these two different types of holes while employing ballistic hole injection mechanism for erasing prior art memory cells. Further, the prior art did not teach the effects associated with these two types of holes on the injection mechanism. Thus, the injection scheme employed in prior art is believed to suffer from following problems:
1) Low Injection Efficiency
It is known that the population of holes in a semiconductor is primarily of the heavy-hole (HH). This is to first order due to its larger density-of-state effective mass. For example, in silicon, it is known the HH occupied about 80 percent of the total population of holes (see, for example, Fischetti et al., Journal of Appl. Physics, vol. 94, pp. 1079–1095, 2003). Further, it is known the ballistic carrier transport is characterized by its mean-free-path, where a ballistic carrier having a longer mean-free-path can transport a longer distance without scattering. The mean-free-path is approximately inversely proportional to the mass of the carriers. Therefore, HH typically has a shorter mean-free-path, and are more likely to experience scattering events through interacting with other types of carriers (e.g. phonons). Thus, a ballistic HH is more prone to loose its ballistic nature during its transport in a semiconductor region. When a ballistic HH transports at energy greater than its thermal energy, it is therefore more likely to loose its energy to become a thermal carrier. Even not loosing all its energy, HH can have its energy component in the direction to the floating gate region (or targeted destination) be significantly lowered such that the hole has insufficient energy to surmount the barrier height 34 of the insulator 26. In other words, when ballistic holes are employed for erasing prior art memory cells, since the majority population of the hole carriers are of the HH type, which has a shorter mean-free-path, most of the supplied holes cannot contribute to the erase operation as anticipate. This causes waste on total current. The combined effects of population and effective mass result in the ballistic hole injection efficiency significantly lower than one usually can expect. (Here, the efficiency is defined as number of charges injected compared to total number of charges supplied).
2) Higher Power Consumption and Slower Erase Speed
The aforementioned effects were ignored in prior art memory cells, and hence the cells require more electrical current be supplied, thus consuming more electric power, in order to complete an erase operation. Further, the low hole injection efficiency in prior art cells can result in slow erase problem when implementing the cells in their product applications.
Problems on Parasitic-Electrons Backward Injection
Please refer to FIG. 3A on this problem. FIG. 3A is similar to FIG. 2A except with additional parasitic electrons 36 and 37 in the valence band 12b and conduction band 12a, respectively. The electrons 36 and 37 are also known as the valence electrons 36 and the conduction electrons 37, respectively. Both electrons 36 and 37 are shown transporting along a backward direction (hereinafter "backward injection") from ballistic gate 12 to tunneling gate 10 when holes 30 are injected from tunneling gate 10 to ballistic gate 12 along a forward direction (hereinafter "forward injection") for erase operation. To suppress these parasitic electrons, prior art taught requirement on material for ballistic gate 12, where material with larger work function, such as a heavily doped p-type polysilicon ("p+ polysilicon"), is required. P+ polysilicon is taught in the prior art because electrons 37 in that material is usually negligible. Further, prior art taught a symmetrical tunneling stack structure comprising tunneling gate 10, tunneling dielectric 28, and ballistic gate 12, wherein tunneling gate 10 and ballistic gate 12 are of p+ polysilicon. The tunneling dielectric 28 is constructed in a single layer of oxynitride with oxide fraction engineered at level less than about 77% such that current flow of the backward injected electrons can be kept at similar current level as that of the forward injected holes 30. In other words, the current of backward injected electrons in prior art cell cannot be entirely suppressed. This causes waste on total current as the forward injected charge and its current is the one of interest for cell operations. Further, there are several other fundamental deficiencies on the symmetrical tunneling structure and cell structure of prior art. The issue is described next with reference to FIGS. 3A and 3C.
Referring to FIG. 3A, for ballistic gate 12 of a p+ polysilicon in prior art, electrons 37 in that region is usually negligible when a low voltage is applied between tunneling gate 10 and ballistic gate 12. Therefore, tunneling current of electrons 37 is negligible. The parasitic electrons thus mainly comprise electrons 36 of valence band 12b and are tunneled to tunneling gate 10 through a trapezoidal-shaped barrier (also known as "direct tunneling"). However, when a voltage of erase operation (e.g. 5V) is applied between tunneling gate 10 and ballistic gate 12, the portion of ballistic gate 12 next to tunneling dielectric 28 can be inadvertently inverted and thus a layer of electrons 37 can still be formed therein. The electrons 37 are formed near the interface between tunneling dielectric 28 and ballistic gate 12 and can be emitted into tunneling gate 10 along path 37a to become hot electrons having energy higher than a minimum of conduction band 10a of that region. The tunneling is through a triangle-shaped tunneling barrier (also known as "Fowler-Nordheim tunneling") having a barrier height 33 that is lower than that of electrons 36 by an energy gap 12c of the ballistic gate 12. Therefore, due to the lower barrier height and the triangular shaped barrier for electrons 37, a much stronger tunneling current is expected once tunneling process for electrons 37 starts. FIG. 3C illustrates the parasitic currents JCE and JVE, associated with conduction electrons ("CE") 37 and valence electrons ("VE") 36, respectively. The voltage dependence of current JCE is seen much stronger than that of current JVE due to the much stronger dependence of current on voltage when charges tunneling through a triangle-shaped barrier. Parasitic current JCE is seen dominating the total current in the higher voltage range (e.g. about 5V). The results show that electrons 37 dominate the parasitic electrons 36 in valence band 12b and hence the total parasitic electrons tunneled into the tunneling gate 10. Note that this effect is work function independent. The p+ polysilicon/oxynitride/p+ polysilicon tunneling stack in prior art overlook such effect, and hence the prior art cell 100 can suffer from the parasitic carriers backward tunneling. Therefore it cannot function properly.
Problems on Parasitic-Holes Backward Injection
Parasitic holes backward injection problem is another major problem for the mechanism employed in prior art. Please refer to FIG. 3B on this problem. FIG. 3B is similar to FIG. 2B except with additional parasitic holes 38 shown in the valence band 12b and some others elements (e.g. electrons 40 and 40′) to be discussed in a later session. Holes 38 are shown transporting in the backward direction from ballistic gate 12 to tunneling gate 10 when electrons 31 are injected in the forward direction for program operation of prior art cell. The problem on backward injected holes 38 is caused by the requirement on higher work function in prior art. Further there are shown barrier height 10c for forward injected electrons 31, and barrier height 39 for backward injected holes 38. Referring to FIG. 3B, as work function of the ballistic gate 12 is increased, once it's beyond a level where the barrier 39 becomes less than the barrier height 10c, parasitic holes 38 can be backward injected to tunneling gate 10 and can result in problems to the program operation similar to that caused by the parasitic electrons to the erase operation. Therefore, the symmetrical tunneling structure of prior art cannot be optimized to suppress parasitic charge carriers for both program and erase operations simultaneously. Such problem prevents tunneling gate 10 in the prior art cell from being used as a single electrode for supplying both types of charges (i.e. electrons and holes). Therefore, it is believed prior art require two separate tunneling gates: one for electron tunneling injection, and the other one for hole tunneling injection. This requirement results in larger cell size, and limits the cell of prior art from practical application.
Problems on Impact Ionization
In addition to the problems described above, the injection mechanism and energy band structure employed in prior art also can suffered from impact ionization problem. FIG. 3B shows the impact ionization problem in the prior art band structure in FIG. 2B. There are shown electrons 40 in the conduction band 10a of tunneling gate 10. In the program operation of prior art, a typical voltage of −2 V and a +2 V is applied to the tunneling gate 10 and ballistic gate 12, respectively. The voltage difference between these gates has to be greater than a minimum voltage in order to supply sufficient energy for electrons 31 (see FIG. 3B) to surmount the barrier height 35 to enter the floating gate 14. However, due to the high bias thus introduced across tunneling dielectric 28, an inversion layer of electrons 40 can be formed in the conduction band 10a of the tunneling gate 10 of p+ polysilicon. Further, another mechanism that can form electrons 40 is through the impact generation process triggered by the backward injected holes 38. As is clearly shown in FIG. 3B that as these holes 38 enter into tunneling gate 10, their energy can be high enough to generate, through impact ionization process, secondary electrons 40 in conduction band 10a or energetic electrons 40′ having energy higher than conduction band 10a. These conduction electrons 40 and 40′ thus generated are termed "Impact-Ionized CE" and behave very differently than the electrons 31 at the valence band 10b. Similar to that illustrated in FIG. 3C, in such range of bias, the current of CE (JCE) is much larger than the current of VE (JVE). In other words, the generated CE 40 and 40′ (either through inversion or through impact-ionization) can dominate the tunneling current between tunneling gate 10 and ballistic gate 12 of prior art.
Likewise, impact ionization problem can also happen in ballistic gate 12 and can be triggered by electrons 40 or by energetic electrons 40′ transported from tunneling gate 10. As described above, these electrons 40 and 40′ are inadvertently generated under the bias condition for program operation. The presence of these electrons is not desirable as they carry a much higher energy than that carried by the electrons 31. As illustrated in FIG. 3B, these electrons 40 and 40′ can tunnel through the tunneling dielectric 28 at such a high energy into ballistic gate 12 and subsequently causes impact ionization therein, where pairs of electrons 40b and holes 40a are created.
It is now clear that the impact ionization and the inversion layer formation can exist in the tunneling gate 10 in the energy band structure for the ballistic injection scheme of prior art. All these effects can create parasitic electrons 40 and 40′ in tunneling gate 10. The effects and the parasitic electrons in the tunneling gate region 10 were not taken into account in the prior art. These effects are uncontrollable, where current can unduly increase to result in current loading issue on supporting circuitry for memory operations. To avoid these problems in program operation, the allowable maximum voltage between gates 10 and 12 has to be limited under a threshold voltage to avoid the formation of electrons 40 and/or 40′ in tunneling gate 10. The range between the minimum and the maximum program voltages defines a workable voltage range for program operation of prior art, and is quite narrow for the injection mechanism employed in prior art (less than about 0.6V). The cell structure in prior art thus demands stringent control on the threshold voltage, and is believed having low manufacturability yield and difficulties in practical applications.
Similar to the program operation, in the erase operation (referring to FIG. 3A), the impact-ionization process can also occur in tunneling gate 10 due to electrons 37 backward injected from ballistic gate 12. The backward injected electrons 37 have an energy high enough to impact ionized charge carriers in tunneling gate 10 to cause loading issue on supporting circuitry for memory operations. The injection mechanism, energy band and cell structure in prior art thus face similar issues in both the program and the erase operations, and the memory is believed having low manufacturability yield and difficulties in practical applications.
Problems on Dielectric Breakdown
Please refer to FIG. 2A for the illustration. In the erase operation of prior art, a typical voltage of +2.5 V and a −2.5V is applied to tunneling gate 10 and ballistic gate 12, respectively. The voltage difference between these two gates has to be greater than a minimum voltage in order to supply sufficient energy for holes 30 to surmount the barrier height 34. However, for the energy band structures proposed in the prior art, such voltage results in a maximum field in the range of about 10 MV/cm to about 20 MV/cm across the tunneling dielectric layer 28. In such range of high field, the tunneling dielectric 28 is believed suffered from dielectric breakdown (see FIG. 3C). To avoid a dielectric breakdown event in cell operation, the maximum allowable voltage between gates 10 and 12 has to be limited under the dielectric breakdown voltage. The range between the minimum and the maximum voltages defines a workable voltage range for the erase operation, and is quite narrow in prior art (typically less than about 0.7V). The cell structure in prior art thus demands stringent control on the dielectric breakdown, and is believed having difficulties in practical applications.
Problems on Parasitic Capacitance
In the energy band structure and cell structure of prior art, the thickness of the tunneling dielectric layer 28 is chosen with a limitation typically in the range of about 2 nanometer to 4 nanometer ("nm" hereinafter) in order to permit charge carriers tunneling through that layer. Therefore, it results in a large parasitic capacitance C between gates 10 and 12, and is undesirable as it introduces adverse impact on cell operation. The capacitance issue can be better understood by referring to the diagram in FIG. 3D (prior art), wherein CBG-TG is the capacitance between ballistic gate 12 and tunneling gate 10, and CBG-FG is the capacitance between ballistic gate 12 and floating gate 14. The total capacitance seen by ballistic gate 12 comprises two main components shown in FIG. 3D, and approximately equals the summation of CBG-FG and CBG-TG. In most situations, the total capacitance can be dominated by CBG-TG due to the much thinner thickness for the tunneling dielectric layer 28 than that for the retention dielectric layer 26, which is typical in the range of about 7 nm to about 12 nm. The capacitance issue is worse when employing dielectric with higher dielectric constant (e.g. oxynitride), which is provided in the prior art for suppressing the parasitic electrons in ballistic gate 12 during hole injection for the erase operation. Therefore, the cell architecture in prior art further suffer from the compromise between suppressing the parasitic electrons and suppressing the total capacitance of ballistic gate 12.
Problems on Large Resistance
In the prior art, ballistic gate layer 12 is desirable to be with a thickness in the range of a few times of the mean-free path of carrier scattering (typically in the range of 10–20 nm), in order to permit the injected carriers transporting through ballistic gate 12 with good efficiency. The needs on a thin thickness unavoidably results in a high sheet resistance to that layer. As described earlier, to reduce parasitic electron tunneling (see FIG. 3A), prior art is limited to using p-type Si for both tunneling gate 10 and ballistic gate 12 when polysilicon is used as the material for these gates. It is known that a heavily doped p-type polysilicon ("p+ polysilicon") typically has a higher resistivity than that of a heavily doped n-type polysilicon ("n+ polysilicon"). Therefore, prior art suffers from a much larger resistance R on both tunneling gate 10 and ballistic gate 12.
The adverse effect of a large R on memory cell performance can be understood from several directions. First, it can cause a large signal delay due to the combining effects of the large R and the large C (i.e. the RC delay). This is particularly a main issue on cell operation as the RC delay can limit the speed on accessing a memory cell when embedded in a large memory array. Secondly, for disturb prevention on un-selected cells, an optimum set of predetermined voltages usually are required to be applied to those cells. However, due to the RC delay, voltages on un-selected cells can be different than the desired values, and hence cell disturb is more prone to happen. Furthermore, the large R can combine with a large current I to result in a IR effect, which can cause a voltage drop when passing a voltage in a signal line. The effect prevents the voltage on a designated electrode of a memory cell from reaching its desired level, and hence can adversely impact cell operation. For example, the adverse impact on an un-selected cell can be an undesired cell disturb, where the cell state is unintentionally changed from one logic state (e.g. a "0") to the other (e.g. a "1"). The IR impact on a selected cell can be a slower speed on cell operations (i.e. program, erase, and read operations).
Problems on Weak Voltage-Dependence of Tunneling Current
The energy band structure in prior art is constructed to permit charge carriers of one type tunneling from tunneling gate 10 to ballistic gate 12 at a current level similar to that for the backward injected parasitic electrons. This results in weak voltage-dependence on the current-voltage relationship. For example, the current for an erase disable condition (i.e. the condition to prevent an unselected cell from an erase disturb) is seen only 104 times lower than that for the erase condition. Similar results can be seen in the program disable condition of prior art. Therefore, unselected cells in prior art are prone to cell disturb issues in both program and erase operations.
These problems can be overcome in accordance with one aspect of the present invention by providing a piezo-ballistic-charge-injection mechanism. Employing the mechanism, the present invention further provides technique altering effective mass of ballistic charge carriers and hence its mean-free-path. Additionally, employing the mechanism, the present invention provides technique increasing carriers population in sub-bands or valleys favorable to their transport. The piezo-ballistic-charge-injection mechanism is implemented in cell structures in accordance with the present invention. Further, these problems can be overcome in accordance with another aspect of the present invention by providing a barrier height engineering concept on energy band structure, by providing a novel method altering barrier heights, by providing injection filter structures, and by providing new cell structures.

Method and apparatus for nonvolatile memory


A method and system, the method including receive image data representations of a set of images of a physical asset; receive a data model of at least one asset, the data model of each of the at least one assets including a semantic description of the respective modeled asset and at least one operation associated with the respective modeled asset; determine a match between the received image data and the data model of one of the at least one assets based on a correspondence therebetween; generate, for the data model determined to be a match with the received image data, an operation plan based on the at least one operation included in matched data model; execute, in response to the generation of the operation plan, the generated operation plan by the physical asset.

The present disclosure relates, generally, to robot assisted operations and, more specifically, to object recognition and task planning aspects in an operations planning and execution pipeline inspection process.
Robot assisted operations including but not limited to inspections and manipulations of the robots may require locating target objects of interest in the environment and segmenting the object from the environment. Recognizing an object in a real-world environment can be a complex undertaking. In order to be useful, the recognition needs to be performed quickly, efficiently, and reliably. Furthermore, once an object is recognized, the robot may need to interact with the object to accomplish a specific task, such as lifting the object, painting the object, rotating the object, etc. Enabling the robot to interact with the object in specific manner or plan appropriate for the object in the environment to accomplish a desired task is often a complex problem for a robot, particularly in a fast and efficient manner.
Therefore, a system and a method that will address the foregoing issues is desirable that can efficiently determine objects and determine a plan for interacting with the objects in the object's natural environment.

Systems and methods of 3D scene segmentation and matching for robotic operations


For producing a collector ring arrangement with a low radial thickness, a longitudinal portion of a shaft is coated with an insulating layer, than an electrically conductive layer is applied on the insulating layer, and the collector ring is fitted on the electrically conductive layer so as to be connected with the latter in an electrically conductive manner, for example by soldering. The length of the electrically conductive layer can be smaller than the length of the insulating layer. The process and the new collector ring arrangement reduce the material and time consumption during the manufacture and/or use the collector ring arrangement.

The present invention relates to a collector ring arrangement as well as to a method of producing the collector ring arrangement.
For supplying and withdrawing current to and from the rotor windings of an electrical machine, a collector ring arrangement is provided on the rotor shaft. Such collector ring arrangements in a prior art are composed of a synthetic plastic body which is pressed outside the bearings or between the bearings on the rotor shaft. The rotor shaft is reduced by a chip removing operation at this location during outer mounting, and the speed during chip removal must be adjusted to the stability which depends on the diameter. The collecting ring arrangement includes collecting rings which are correspondingly connected to the rotor winding through a current rail. Carbon brushes abut against the collecting rings for current transmission.
It is important to maintain the outer diameter of the collecting ring as small as possible. The smaller collecting ring in the outer diameter, the lower the peripheral speed of the grinding ring, and as the result the lower the surface temperature and the lower is the wear of the brushes. For this reason, it is conventional in the prior art to reduce the rotor shaft in a region in which it carries the collecting ring arrangement. It is therefore has been suggested to design the individual components, namely the synthetic plastic body, the current rails and the collector ring as thin as possible in their radial dimensions, to obtain an outer diameter of the total arrangement as small as possible. Such thin components are however to be mounted only with extreme caution, since they can be easily deformed. The reduction of the diameter of the shaft means a material expense for the working tools and the time expense for the reduction process, in particular in the end phase of the process, since with the reduced diameter the working speed because of lacking stability of the shaft must be throttled, or in other words the shaft is time-critical in the manufacture.
For reducing the radial thickness of the collector ring arrangement, it has been proposed in the European Patent Document EP-B 94 163 to produce the synthetic plastic body by injection molding, and during formation of the synthetic plastic body to incorporate the corresponding current rails and the collector ring in the synthetic plastic body. The thusly produced unit of synthetic plastic body and conductive elements is pressed onto the rotor shaft of the machine. The current rails require naturally a certain own rigidity, or in other words material thickness, and the synthetic plastic body must be correspondingly stable for mounting the unit on the shaft.

Collector ring arrangement, and method of producing the same


A positive displacement pump having a centrally disposed rotor within a housing, the rotor having inwardly and outwardly moving vanes for movement of fluid through the pump. Races in end walls of the housing partly or entirely control movement of the vanes. A dam is movably positioned at the housing's fluid discharge port, the dam having upper and lower ends, the lower end of the dam extending into the housing and being positioned so as to be close to or in sliding contact with the surface of the rotor. This pump construction is extremely versatile in its construction and applications.

Rotary pistons of the type having an encased, eccentrically positioned rotor with radially extending vanes which move in and out of the rotor, depending upon their position on the rotational cycle of the rotor, are used for example as pumps or turbines. One such device is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,554,596 of Albert and David Patterson issued Apr. 29, 2003, in which the vane movement, in and out of the rotor, is achieved by cam surfaces within the casing which act on both inner and outer edges of the vanes.
In my co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/680,236 entitled "Rotary Pistons", the outward movement of the vanes of such a pump is achieved by upward extensions of shoulders at the sides of each vane, which upward extensions contain pins which are seated in races continuously extending in portions of the interior wall of the casing and positioned so that as the pins move about the races, they control the inward and outward movement of the vanes.
In my U.S. Pat. No. 6,896,502, issued May 24, 2005, an eccentrically positioned rotor is described and illustrated, provided with three planar vanes arranged in chord-like fashion in the rotor. The vanes' outward movement is accomplished by way of centrifugal force while inward movement of the vanes is caused by the cam action of the chamber walls bearing on outer edges of the vanes.
In my co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/845,073, a positive displacement rotary piston pump is described and illustrated in which a pair of planar vanes are moveable in a slot diametrically extending through the rotor, the inward movement of the vanes being governed by cam action of the inner surface of the pump housing, and the outer movement being governed by centrifugal force and/or biasing.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an alternative constructions of positive displacement pump which will be adaptable to a wide range of different sizes and which will be adaptable to a wide variety of fluid and pressure conditions.


There is provided an optical member that can retain a high antireflection effect on a substrate for a long time.

Polyimides are used in electronic components and electrical machinery components because of their high heat resistance and excellent electrical insulating properties. Transparent polyimides having an aliphatic structure are used also in liquid crystal display elements. However, the introduction of the aliphatic structure to impart transparency to a polyimide can lower the heat resistance and the mechanical characteristics of the polyimide. Thus, a polyimide having high transparency, high heat resistance, and excellent mechanical characteristics has been synthesized by introducing a specific alicyclic structure (see PTL 1). A polyimide having high transparency, high heat resistance, and excellent mechanical characteristics has been synthesized by using a substantially planar diamine, such as trans-1,4-cyclohexanediamine (see PTL 2). However, use of trans-1,4-cyclohexanediamine made polymerization difficult because of the formation of a salt during polymerization. Thus, the formation of a salt must be reduced, for example, by silylation of the diamine.
It is also known that a polyimide produced using pyromellitic acid and 4,4′-methylenebis(aminocyclohexane) has high transparency, high heat resistance, and excellent mechanical characteristics (see PTL 3). However, the polyimide produced by this method has low solubility. Thus, a film of the polyimide must be manufactured by heat treatment of a film of a precursor, such as polyamic acid, at high temperature. This causes problems, such as thermal damage to a substrate and degradation of transparency because of the yellow coloration of the polyimide. Thus, there is a demand for a polyimide that is easy to synthesize, has high transparency and heat resistance, and can be processed without causing thermal damage to neighboring members.
In an antireflective structure having a periodic fine structure having a pitch less than or equal to a wavelength in a visible light region, it is known that the formation of a periodic fine structure having an appropriate pitch and height results in high antireflection performance in a wide wavelength range. A known method for forming a periodic fine structure includes the application of a film in which fine particles having a size less than or equal to the wavelength are dispersed. In particular, it is known that a textured structure formed of aluminum oxide boehmite grown on a glass substrate has a high antireflection effect. This textured structure formed of boehmite is produced by steam treatment or hot-water immersion treatment of an aluminum oxide film, for example, formed by a liquid phase method (a sol-gel method) (see NPL 1). However, exposure to water vapor or hot water can cause damage to the glass substrate.
It is known that polyimides can be transparent, have a variable refractive index, and protect a glass substrate from damage caused by water or water vapor (see PTL 4). However, it is difficult to produce a polyimide that is easy to synthesize and has high transparency and heat resistance. In order to manufacture a low-reflectance optical member, there is a demand for an optical thin film that has small variations in thickness and optical properties.
A porous film that contains fine particles deposited on the surface layer as an antireflection coating and a metal oxide or halogenated metal layer formed by a method of growing boehmite on a substrate are convenient and have high productivity and excellent optical performance. On the other hand, the porous film and the metal oxide or halogenated metal layer have low density and many voids. Thus, water from the outside can easily reach the substrate, often causing erosion of the substrate or the elution of substrate components, such as alkali ions. Thus, there is a demand for a thin-film material that can be applied between a porous film or a boehmite film and a substrate to improve antireflection performance and reduce damage to the substrate. Furthermore, there is a demand for a high-performance antireflection-coated optical member without cracking or film irregularities caused by a variation in film thickness or optical properties resulting from the effects of heat or water.

Optical member, polyimide, method for manufacturing optical member, and method for producing polyimide

Abstract: The optical member includes a laminated body that can reduce the reflection of light formed on a substrate surface, wherein at least one layer of the laminated body is a polyimide layer containing a polyimide film, and the polyimide contains a repeating unit represented by the following general formula (1), and a 1,4-cyclohexylene group in the main chain of R2 in the general formula (1) contains 90% by mole or more of a trans-1,4-cyclohexylene group:

Abstract: wherein R1 denotes a tetravalent organic group, and R2 denotes a divalent organic group having one or two or more 1,4-cyclohexylene groups in the main chain.