A mobile device having first and second RF transceivers performs a communication function in accordance with a communication protocol of the second RF transceiver. During performance of this function, the mobile device estimates the RF interference on a channel of the first RF transceiver, and stores parameters which characterize the estimated RF interference in association with an identifier corresponding to the function. These actions are repeated for a plurality of channels of the first RF transceiver, as well as for a plurality of different communication functions. When performing a communication function again, the mobile device receives an identifier corresponding to the function and retrieves stored parameters corresponding to the received identifier. The mobile device applies the retrieved parameters to the first RF transceiver for reducing the adverse effect of RF interference during reception on the channel of the first RF transceiver.

1. Field of the Technology
The present disclosure relates generally to mobile communication devices configured for radio frequency (RF) communications, and more particularly to techniques for reducing the impact of RF interference in such communications.
2. Description of the Related Art
A mobile communication device, such as a smartphone or cellular telephone, may be configured for radio frequency (RF) communications in a wireless communication network. For example, such a device may communicate via access points (APs) of a wireless local area network (WLAN) in accordance with IEEE 802.11 technology or the like. Such a device may be additionally configured for RF communications with use of a cellular technology, for example, in accordance with Long Term Evolution (LTE® ) radio technology. The RF bands assigned for use of these technologies are adjacent one another.
There is a need for ensuring that communications are not hindered due to RF interference from use of co-located radios (e.g. IEEE 802.11 and LTE®radios contained within the same mobile device) in these and similar environments.

Methods and apparatus for reducing the impact of RF interference based on estimation of colored noise


A dampening unit that sprays viscous application liquid to a treatment surface includes a rotating brush driven to rotate around the axis, a liquid applicator that supplies the liquid to the brush, and a brush chamber to accommodate the brush. The brush chamber includes a wall that surrounds the brush. The wall defines an ejection window for discharging viscous application liquid that is either sprayed or spun away from the brush.

Dampening units for applying treatment and/or application liquids to treatment surfaces in order to produce extensive, uniform, and generally very thin coatings from the respective application liquid are. Such dampening units are used, for example, in printing devices or printing machines for offset printing. In such machines, dampening unit is assigned to each of the printing cylinders to produce a color set of a multicolor print.
In one known printing device of this type, the dampening unit has a horizontally arranged brush that can be driven to rotate. The brush is provided with the application liquid and bears against an outer surface of the printing cylinder to transfer the liquid as the brush rotates about its brush axis.
Also known is a printing device comprising a plate cylinder or printing cylinder on which a multicolor printed image is produced via a plurality of color application rollers. Provided upstream of the color application rollers, in relation to the direction of rotation of the printing cylinder, is a horizontally arranged dampening unit for applying an application liquid to the printing cylinder. The dampening unit comprises a plurality of rollers that are driven to rotate. One of these rollers is an application roller that bears against the printing roller. A brush or brush roller that is driven to rotate applies the application liquid by spraying a layer on a further roller, which then transfers the application liquid to the application roller.

Dampening unit comprising a rotating brush, and container-handling machine


The process of the invention to make miniaturized multipolar cables includes the steps of combining together a plurality of individually insulated conductors, inserting a filling in a pasty state and containing mineral fillers into the gaps existing between the conductors, partly hardening the filling and disposing the other cable components, in particular the sheath, around the conductors-filling assembly, and letting the filling become completely hard within the produced cable.

The present invention relates to a process to make miniaturized multipolar flame-propagation-resistant cables having a reduced emission of toxic and noxious gases.
By the word "miniaturized", cables are intended in which the insulating layer thickness in the individual electrical conductors is included between 0.20 and 0.30 mm and the sheath thickness is included between 0.3 and 0.8 mm. Examples of miniaturized cables are the object of AMT 551070 specifications.
By the expression "flame-propagation-resistant" it is intended to mean that the cables assembled together to form bundles, must comply with the requirements established by CEI (Comitato Elettrotecnico Italiano, Italian Electrotechnical Committee) rules 20-22-III.
By the expression "reduced emission of toxic and noxious gases", it is intended to mean that the individual components of the cable when submitted to the tests established by CEI rule 20-37-II, give rise to an overall toxicity-index value of the cable, as hereinafter defined, lower than 3.5.
Said overall toxicity index of the cable is the sum of the toxicity indices of the individual components, each of them being multiplied by the ratio of the weight that each said component has in the cable unit of length to the overall weight that all the components have in the cable unit of length. The present invention also refers to the cables obtained by the process in question.
It is known that multipolar cables are cables provided, within one and the same sheath, with at least two and generally a plurality of electrical conductors which are individually insulated and assembled, being laid together for example.
The known process is comprised of the steps of:
combining together at least two and generally a plurality of electrical conductors which have been already individually insulated, i.e. already provided with an insulating layer of their own, said assembling being carried out for example by laying the conductors themselves together; PA1 inserting fillings into the gaps left between the conductors while they are being assembled, which fillings in the case of cables belonging to the flame-retardant cable class, are made of a practically fireproof material which therefore does not propagate flame, such as cables extruded from blends of polymeric materials highly charged with mineral fillers which, as such, do not propagate flame; and PA1 forming a sheath of a polymeric material about the assembly obtained by the preceding steps. PA1 combining together at least two electrical conductors, individually covered with an insulating layer, gaps being defined between said conductors combined together, PA1 inserting a filling into at least one fraction of said gaps, PA1 applying a sheath surrounding the assembly formed of the conductors combined together and the filling inserted in the gaps defined between said conductors, characterized in that the step of filling the gaps defined between the conductors comprises the steps of: PA1 at least two individually insulated electric conductors combined together, PA1 a filling inserted into the gaps existing between said insulated conductors combined together, PA1 a sheath surrounding the assembly formed of the insulated conductors combined together and the filling, characterized in that the filling inserted into the gaps between the insulated conductors comprises a blend of a first polymer selected from polydimethyl siloxanes having terminal vinyl groups, a second polymer selected from silicones containing Si--H groups and mineral fillers selected from magnesium hydroxide and aluminium hydroxide, in an amount included between 40% and 70% by weight of the overall weight of the blend.
While in known non-miniaturized multipolar low-voltage cables the conductor insulators have an average thickness of 0.82 mm, in miniaturized multipolar cables the insulator thickness is included between 0.20 and 0.30 mm on an average.
In the case of non-miniaturized cables no problem exists when polymeric material highly charged with mineral fillers is to be introduced by extrusion into the existing gaps between the assembled conductors. This is due to the fact that in non-miniaturized cables the thickness of the filling to be fitted into the gaps existing between the individual insulated conductors and around the assembly of same is of such a value that extrusion of the filling at relatively low temperatures is allowed without giving rise to discontinuities in the filling and/or important variations in the final diameter of the cable. On the contrary, the higher temperatures necessary for low-thickness (as in the case of miniaturized cables) extrusion of blends of polymeric materials highly charged with mineral fillers involves the presence of porosity in the filling itself caused by the emission of water vapour by desorption or decomposition of such hygroscopic mineral fillers.
It should be noted in fact that in order to be able to extrude, for example, a polyolefin-based blend containing mineral fillers such as magnesium hydroxide or aluminium hydroxide in an amount of 40% by weight with respect to 100 parts by weight of polymer, the temperature to be reached during the extrusion for making the blend fluid enough so that gaps between the conductors can be properly filled, shall be about 150.degree. C.
The Applicant has observed that the possibility of applying fillings formed of polymeric materials containing high amounts of mineral fillers by extrusion, is limited to a minimum thickness of 0.5 mm.
Therefore, the application of a filling by extrusion is to be excluded for miniaturized multipolar cables because in said cables the filling thickness between the conductors is on the order of 0.20-0.25 mm.
However, in order to be able to make miniaturized multipolar flame-propagation resistant cables it is necessary to carry out filling of the gaps between the assembled conductors by a material resisting flame propagation or flame-retardant material.
In a known solution it is provided that a glass rod or a glass-fibre cord is disposed into the gaps existing between the conductors combined together to form a cable.
This known solution, however, has some drawbacks. If glass rods combined with the cable conductors are used as the filling, the cable flexibility is clearly reduced. In addition, the glass rod's brittleness makes the arrangement of said rods close to the conductors troublesome.
If a glass-fibre cord is used as the filling, which cord may be optionally covered with a sheath of polymeric material, there is a risk that, due to breaking of some glass fibres in the cord, which fibres are very brittle being made of glass, said same glass fibres may project from the cord in the form of needles and consequently cause annoying injuries to the operators when they are assembling the cables with fittings such as connecting means or with appliances to be supplied power by the cable.
In both cases, in addition, since it is necessary to carry out coupling of the glass rods or glass-fibre cords, the assembling operations are made more complicated because the number of components to combine together is twice that of the insulated conductors.
Resorting to the use of section members of polymeric materials containing high amounts of mineral fillers in place of the glass rods or glass-fibre cords also involves the necessity, in addition to the complexity of the above mentioned assembling operation, to utilize section members having a very low tensile strength as compared with the tensile strength possessed by the insulated conductors, which will bring about the danger of breaking said section members while a cable is being manufactured.
A solution similar to the one disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,978,649, comprises introducing, at room temperature, blends of polymers having a high flowability at room temperature and capable of crosslinking in time still at room temperature, into multipolar cables already provided with a sheath for creating fillings between the assembled conductors, does not seem to be practicable. In fact the addition of the amounts of mineral fillers necessary to make the miniaturized cable flame retardant to the blends designed to form the fillings gives rise to such viscosity values in said blends that they cannot be pumped at room temperature into the gaps existing between the conductors and sheath in a cable.

Process to make miniaturized multipolar flame-propagation-resistant cables having a reduced emission of toxic and noxious gases and cables obtained thereby


An encode apparatus and an encode method may be provided. The encoding apparatus may comprise a first stage and a second stage. The first stage may be configured to receive a first input, decode the first input, and produce a first output comprising the decoded first input. The second stage may be configured to receive a second input, receive the first output from the first stage, and convert the first input and the second input from a first coding system to a second coding system based on the second input and the first output. The second stage may produce a second output comprising the converted first input and the converted second input.

Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory (MRAM) is a non-volatile memory where data is stored in magnetic storage elements. In simple configurations, each cell has two ferromagnetic plates, each of which can hold a magnetic field, separated by a thin insulating layer. One of the plates is a permanent magnet set to a selected polarity and the other plate's field can be changed to match that of an external field to store a bit. Depending upon the field, the cell is either in the low (RL) resistive state, which may represent a logic "1", or the high (RH) resistive state, which may represent a logic "0".
Due to process variations, individual MRAM cells in an array can have different RH values (when programmed at RH) and different RL values (when programmed at RL). Process variations can result in an overlap in the resistance values for the high (RH) and low (RL) states, which can lead to read errors. This overlap is defined between RHmin and RLmax.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.


Structures including a photodiode and methods of fabricating such structures. A substrate has a top surface, a well, and a trench extending from the top surface to the well. A photodiode is positioned in the trench. The photodiode includes an electrode that is provided by a first portion of the well. A bipolar junction transistor has an emitter that is positioned over the top surface of the substrate and a subcollector that is positioned below the top surface of the substrate. The subcollector is provided by a second portion of the well.

The present invention relates to photonics chips and, more particularly, to structures including a photodiode and methods of fabricating such structures.
Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) is a laser-mapping technology that measures distance to a target by illuminating the target with pulsed laser light and measuring the reflected pulses with a sensor. LIDAR finds use, for example, in autonomous robots and self-driving cars. The sensor employed in a LIDAR system, and also in other infrared wavelength motion detection systems, is a germanium photodiode. Germanium possesses high absorption in the infrared wavelength range. Typically, a two-chip solution is used in which one chip includes one or more germanium photodiodes and a second chip includes a trans-impedance amplifier as well as associated logic and input/output. Each germanium photodiode converts impinging electromagnetic radiation into current as photons are absorbed. The trans-impedance amplifier amplifies the current generated by the photodiode and converts the current into a voltage.
Improved structures including a photodiode and methods of fabricating such structures are needed.

Photodiodes integrated into a BiCMOS process


A composite bicycle frame comprising a continuous frame tube defining cross bar, down tube, and seat tube portions. The frame tube is formed from a fiber reinforced polymer composite. Integrally connected to the frame tube are seat tube, bottom bracket, and head tube fittings. The cross bar portion of the frame tube extends between the seat tube and head tube fittings, with the down tube portion extending between the bottom bracket and head tube fittings. The seat tube portion itself extends between the seat tube and bottom bracket fittings.

The fabrication of bicycle frames from fiber reinforced polymer composites is well known in the prior art. For example, the use of thermoset composites to fabricate bicycle frames is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,850,607 and 4,889,355. In particular, these references describe the fabrication of bicycle frames through the use of resin impregnated fibrous materials such as glass, KEVLAR, or carbon fiber. According to prior art fabrication methodology, these composite bicycle frames are typically constructed by first pre-forming the elongate, composite members thereof, and then interconnecting these members with composite joints.
For example, the prior art composite bicycle frame is typically fabricated by first forming a separate cross bar, down tube, and seat tube from a fiber reinforced polymer composite, and subsequently placing these components into a common fixture. The placement of the cross bar, down tube, and seat tube into the fixture maintains their desired orientations while they are connected to each other by forming interconnecting joints therebetween with additional fiber reinforced polymer composite material.
As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, though this prior art fabrication methodology provides a bicycle frame which is lightweight and durable, it is extremely time consuming and expensive. In this respect, each of the interconnecting joints must be individually fabricated by hand. Further, extensive hand finishing to the frame is required such that a desirable smooth outer surface is provided.
Thus, although the prior art has recognized to a limited extent the benefits of providing a lightweight and durable bicycle frame, the known fabrication methodologies for such frames have been time consuming and cost ineffective. Accordingly, there exists a need in the prior art for a method of fabricating a composite bicycle frame which is lightweight and durable, wherein the method minimizes the manual operations involved in the practice thereof, and consequently facilitates the manufacture of the bicycle frame at a substantially reduced cost. In this respect, such a method requires the minimization or elimination of the prior art steps needed to provide the interconnection of the various frame components and for providing a desirable smooth overall finish to the frame so as to substantially reduce the amount of labor involved in the fabrication process.

Composite bicycle frame and method of manufacture


A computer-aided writing system offers assistance to a user writing in a non-native language, as the user needs help, without requiring the user to divert attention away from the entry task. The writing system provides a user interface (UI) that integrates writing assistance with in-line text entry. When the user is unsure of a word's spelling or whether the word is appropriate, the user may enter a corresponding native word directly in line with the ongoing sentence. An error tolerant spelling tool accepts the native word (even if it is misspelled or mistyped) and derives the most probable non-native word for the given context. The spelling tool consults a bilingual dictionary to determine possible non-native word translation candidates, a non-native language model (e.g., a trigram language model) to generate probabilities associated with the candidates given the current sentence or phrase context, and a translation model to generate probabilities of how likely a certain native word was intended given the non-native word candidates. From these probabilities, the spelling tool determines the most probable non-native word translation and substitutes the non-native word for the native input string. If the user likes the non-native word, the user may simply continue with the sentence. On the other hand, if the user is still unsure of the non-native word, the user can invoke a sentence recommendation tool that allows the user to see the non-native word in a bilingual sentence pair to learn how the word can be used.

With the rapid development of the Internet, computer users all over the world are becoming increasingly familiar with writing English. Unfortunately, for some societies that possess significantly different cultures and writing styles, the ability to write in English is an ever-present barrier. This is not due to lack of knowledge, as research suggests that many non-English users have sufficient knowledge of English to easily discriminate between a sentence written in native-English and a sentence written in broken English. English is used an example, but the problem persists across other language boundaries.
Consider the plight of a Chinese user. Typically, when a Chinese user wants to write an English word/phrase in which he is unfamiliar with its spelling or usage, the user usually looks up the word/phrase in a Chinese-English dictionary. If the dictionary is an electronic dictionary, the user must input the Chinese word/phrase via some input mechanism. This process suffers three shortcomings. First, it is not convenient for a Chinese user to input a Chinese word/phrase. Second, forcing the user to enter a Chinese word/phrase interrupts the user's train of thought when writing in English. Third, as a non-native speaker of English, it is difficult for a Chinese user to select a suitable word from the dictionary.
Accordingly, there is a need for a machine-aided writing system that helps non-English users with spelling, grammar, and writing as a native-English user. As envisioned by the inventors, such a machine-aided writing system should act as a consultant that provides various kinds of help whenever necessary, and allows the users to control the writing. Such a system might provide spelling help to assist users with hard-to-spell words and simultaneously check the usage in a certain context. The machine-aided writing system might further provide some form of sentence help to let users refine the writing by providing perfect example sentences.
Several machine-aided approaches have been proposed. The approaches typically fall into two categories: (1) automatic translation, and (2) translation memory. Both work at the sentence level. The former attempts to automatically translate sentences entered by the user into sentences that are grammatically and stylistically correct. However, the quality of fully automatic machine translation in the current system is not completely satisfactory because a significant amount of manual editing is needed following such translation to ensure the high quality. The translation memory approach works like a case-based system in that, given a sentence, the system retrieves similar sentences from a translation example database. The user then translates the subject sentence by analogy.
While both approaches offer some advantages, there remains room to improve the user experience with computer-aided writing systems. More particularly, there is a need for a computer-aided writing system that allows non-English user to collaborate with the computer in a way that achieves the highest quality writing with less brute force effort.

Computer-aided writing system and method with cross-language writing wizard


The present disclosure relates to systems and methods for determining parent-child relationships. The systems may obtain a first location name of a first point of interest (POI); perform a word segmentation operation on the first location to obtain a plurality of portions of the first location name; determine a first portion from the plurality of portions by comparing to a first portion name database, the first portion indicating that the first POI is a child POI; and determine a second POI based on a second portion of the first location name and that the second POI is a parent POI of the first POI.

Online to offline transportation services utilizing Internet technology, such as online taxi services, have become increasingly popular because of their convenience. However, a destination input by a user is usually an area of interest (AOI) rather than a specific point location. The relatively large area of an AOI would lower the precision of a navigation, makes it more difficult to pick up the passenger, and/or affect the estimated price of the trip as the estimated price is determined based on the input destination. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide systems and methods for determining a destination based on parent-child relationships between points of interest (POIs). In addition, it would be desirable to provide systems and methods to establish the parent-child relationships between the POIs for later use.

Systems and methods for parent-child relationship determination for points of interest

BEIJING DIDI INFINITY TECHNOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENT CO., LTD.


The invention relates to a control unit that includes a case able to receive a first device which may in particular be a printed circuit, a fascia intended to be placed against the case, the fascia being able to receive a second device which may in particular be a force sensor, a connection link connecting the first device to the second device. The control unit is in addition provided with an integrated device for assisting assembly keeping the control unit in an open state (EO), the case and the fascia being at a distance one from the other in a first position (P1) and this so as to facilitate inter alia the assembly of the connection link, the integrated device for assisting assembly then permitting placing of the control unit in a closed state (EF), the fascia and the case having been brought one towards the other and being one against the other.

Motor vehicles have in their dashboard and central console means for controlling many systems such as the air-conditioning, the radio and others. These means which up to now have used electromechanical buttons of rotary knob or sliding cursor type are progressively being replaced by sensory and tactile proximity sensors, zero displacement or very short travel sensors, employing flexible resistive films of the FSR (Force Sensing Resistor) type. These sensors comprise a wide detection zone electrically connected to a printed circuit. The control units are formed of two main parts, a case and a fascia, which must after assembly be proof against water, against dusts and other contaminants. To assist protection of the printed circuit it is placed in an isolated compartment of the case while the flexible film of the sensor is on the fascia under a protective device such as a thin wall and is thus actuatable by a user.
These increasingly numerous control means are integrated into control units which are also increasingly small and the assembly of these units is then increasingly difficult. One of the most difficult operations consists of connecting the flexible film to the integrated circuit. Indeed the two components being fixed for the one in a compartment of the case and for the other to the fascia, an opening is provided in an internal wall of the case so that a connection link in the form of a long and narrow flexible tongue is inserted in it and can enter the compartment to be electrically connected there to the printed circuit. The difficult manipulation of the components during the assembly requires considerable time and can cause damage at the connection link. Moreover the problem is not specific to resistive sensors but to any flexible element having to connect the fascia to the case. Thus can be used optical fibers, conventional electrical cables.
It has become important to propose a simple device facilitating manipulation and ensuring the quality of the mounting of the control units.

Control unit integrating a device for assisting assembly


According to one embodiment, a moving image/picture encoding apparatus of an embodiment comprises an encoded information acquisition module, an encoding complexity calculation module, an encoding complexity conversion module, and a transcode module. The encoded information acquisition module reads MPEG header information from the input stream to acquire information on a quantization scale, generated bits and a picture type for each frame. The encoding complexity calculation module uses the acquired information to calculate, for each of the frames, encoding complexity represented in a form of the product of the quantization scale and the generated bits. The encoding complexity conversion module uses a linear function prepared for each of the picture types to convert the calculated encoding complexity into encoding complexity of H. 264/AVC. The transcode module uses the converted encoding complexity of H. 264/AVC to transcode the input stream into the output stream.

In fields where digital moving image information is handled, the information is compressed. One typical compression technique is MPEG (e.g., MPEG-1, MPEG-2, H. 264/MPEG-4 AVC). The MPEG-1 has been used in old-generation package media (e.g., a video CD). In the meantime, the MPEG-2 is used in digital television broadcasting or current-generation video package media (e.g., a DVD). Moreover, the H. 264/MPEG-4 AVC or the like is used to more efficiently compress high-quality digital moving image information such as high-definition pictures.
The MPEG-2 is used for the high-definition pictures of, for example, a digital television broadcast, but the compression efficiency of the MPEG-2 is becoming less than sufficient. For example, when high-definition pictures (the bit rate is a fixed rate of 24 Mbps) of a satellite digital broadcast are to be recorded into a single-sided single-layer DVD-R disc having a capacity of 4.7 GB, little more than twenty minutes of pictures can only be recorded. However, if the high-definition pictures are re-encoded by, for example, the H. 264/MPEG-4 AVC and thus converted (transcoded) into new high-definition pictures (the bit rate is a variable rate of about 4 Mbps in average), about two hours of high-definition pictures of the digital television broadcast can be recorded in the 4.7 GB disc.
Under these circumstances, development is proceeding in moving image encoding techniques for transcoding a first encoding stream (e.g., an MPEG-2 stream) into a second encoding stream (e.g., an H. 264/MPEG-4 AVC stream) (see Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2006-33014).
In Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2006-33014, transitions in the complexity of encoding and the amount of generated bits are regarded as equal in order to achieve adaptive bits allocation. That is, if a quantization parameter remains the same throughout a sequence, the transition in the generated bits of an input image stream can be regarded as the same as the transition in the encoding complexity throughout the sequence, and bits can be allocated in accordance with the encoding complexity for each frame. However, in fixed bit rate control which is used in, for example, the digital television broadcasting, the quantization parameter is changed to maintain a constant bit rate, so that the transition in the generated bits cannot always be regarded as the same as the transition in the encoding complexity. That is, it is difficult to achieve the adaptive bits allocation corresponding to the contents of an input image stream.

Moving image encoding apparatus, moving image encoding method, and video device


A computer system and method for allowing access to system partitions while an operating system is operational are disclosed. The system partitions are mounted by the operating system as logical drives so that the system partitions can be accessed as any other logical drive. In one embodiment, a method for accessing a special partition on at least one of a plurality of physical disks associated with a computer system running an operating system includes the operations of identifying a designated disk from the plurality of physical disks, each of the physical disks having a partition table associated therewith, and determining whether there is a special partition on the designated disk. The method further includes identifying the partition table associated with the designated disk when it is determined that the special partition is on the designated disk, and modifying a partition type in the partition table associated with the designated disk when it is determined that the special partition is on the designated disk.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an operating system and, more particularly, to an operating system capable of supporting system partitions.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hardware vendors are able to customize their hardware systems to operating systems. One customization a hardware vendor can provide is a system partition on a boot-up disk drive of the hardware system. Such a system partition will contain additional programs, such as configuration and diagnostic programs, that a user may access.
The problem is that conventionally, such partitions cannot be accessed by the operating system. In fact, the Microsoft.RTM. Windows NT.TM. operating system (Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Wash.) will not recognize the system partitions and thus a user cannot access the system partition while the Microsoft Windows NT operating system is booted. The only way to access system partitions is for users to reboot the hardware system and press the function key F10 during the boot sequence. Hence, the need to reboot the hardware system to access a system partition is very burdensome to the user. In addition to being time consuming, the user loses the ability to use the operating system.
Thus, there is a need for techniques to allow access to system partitions without having to undergo the reboot sequence.

Method and system for mounting a system partition as a logical drive while an operating system is operational by modifying a partition table


An automatically adjustable method for use in opto-acoustic metrology or other types of metrology operations is described. The method includes modifying the operation of a metrology system that uses a PSD style sensor arrangement. The method may be used to quickly adjust the operation of a metrology system to ensure that the data obtained therefrom are of the desired quality. Further, the method is useful in searching for and optimizing data that is or can be correlated to substrate or sample features or characteristics that of interest. Apparatus and computer readable media are also described.

Optical metrology systems, for example, a opto-acoustic metrology system, can measure changes in reflectivity of the specimen that are due to a piezoreflective effect caused by ultrasonic waves propagating within the specimen. It can also measure the deflection of a laser beam due to the deformation caused by the ultrasonic waves. This type of metrology system, as well as other types known to those skilled in the art, use sensors that use position sensitive detection. These sensors detect a position and/or an intensity of a light spot in one or two-dimensions on a sensor surface. These sensors, referred to as "PSD sensors" may be either isotropic or discrete sensors. Further, PSD sensors may have one or more sensitive regions or cells.
In some opaque film metrology embodiments, multiple PSD sensors are used to measure film thickness. One such metrology system is the opto-acoustic system whose basic function is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,748,318, the subject matter of which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
In general, the opto-acoustic system measures the change in reflectivity (ΔR) of a specimen that is caused by the piezoreflective effect. The piezoreflective effect is modified by detect ultrasonic waves that travel within the specimen. See FIG. 1.
As shown, a pump beam 10 is directed at the surface 16 of the sample 14. The pump beam 10 causes rapid expansion in the surface 16 as shown by bump 15. This rapid expansion creates a shock or stress wave that is dispersed into the sample 14. The initial stress wave and the components thereof that return to the surface 16 of the sample 14 cause a change in the reflectivity of the surface 16 sample 14. A probe beam 12 is directed onto and reflected from sample 14. The reflected probe beam is incident upon a sensor 20 such as a PSD sensor that detects changes in the reflectivity of the surface based on changes in the reflected probe beam.
In addition, the system shown in FIG. 1 can also measure the deflection of a probe beam 12 that is caused by the same stress waves. As can be appreciated from the nature of the bump 15, as stress waves propagating within the sample 16 intersect the surface 16, they can cause a deformation in the surface 16. A split-cell detector 20 may be used to measure the deflection in the probe beam 12 caused by deformations in the surface 16 by measuring an imbalance in the incident probe power between the two cells of detector. See FIG. 2.
Typical PSD style sensors output two types of information. The first type is position sensitive information which relates a position of an incident spot of light (e.g. probe beam laser). As perturbations in the sample surface may deflect a probe beam incident upon the surface of a sensor, deflections of the probe beam may provide information about certain characteristics of the sample. The second type of information relates to the overall radiant power or flux incident upon the sensor. The amount of power incident upon the active surface of a sensor may provide information about certain characteristics of the sample. Therefore, taken alone or together and/or as a function of some other variable such as time, the types of information provided by PSD style sensors can be used to determine characteristics of the sample under test.
PSD style sensors and the metrology systems that use them must be manually aligned and maintained. Accordingly, it can be quite time consuming to modify the operation of a metrology tool to monitor a new product or feature. Where manual modification of sensor settings is required, it is often the case that these settings are not modified, thereby preventing one from discovering new applications for the metrology tool or making it difficult to truly dial in the sensitivity of a metrology tool to obtain optimal results.
Accordingly, there is a need for an automatically adjustable sensor mechanism for use in opto-acoustic metrology or other types of metrology operations.

Position sensitive detection optimization


An alternator for a vehicle has a rotor with a field wiring, a stator with a three-phase stator wiring, a regulator, and a rectifier. The regulator and rectifier are disposed away from each other with the rotor between. An alternating current is generated in the stator wiring in response to a rotation of the rotor and a field current received in the field wiring. The rectifier converts the alternating current into a direct current and outputs the direct current as an electrical energy generated in the alternator. The regulator regulates a value of the filed current to control the electrical energy. The rectifier acts as a heat generating member, but heat generated in the rectifier is hardly transmitted to the regulator disposed away from the rectifier.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an alternator driven by an internal combustion engine of a vehicle such as a passenger car, a truck or the like.
2. Description of Related Art
A slant nose type vehicle has recently been required to decrease a running resistance in the vehicle and to improve a field of vision for a driver. Further, a wide accommodation space of a vehicle compartment has recently been required to give better comfort to occupants of the vehicle. These requirements narrow an engine room space. In the engine room, an internal combustion engine, an alternator driven by the engine, and the like are disposed.
Further, an engine speed has been reduced to improve fuel economy, so that number of revolutions in an alternator has been reduced. In contrast, the number of current consumers such as a safety control device and the like has been increased, so that the alternator has been required to increase its generated electrical energy. Therefore, the alternator having a smaller size and a higher output is required. In this alternator, combustion heat per unit volume is heightened, and cooling performance is inevitably lowered.
In an alternator for a vehicle, a columnar rotor is disposed in a cylindrical stator, a pulley is disposed on a driving side of the rotor to receive a rotational force from an engine, and the rotor is rotated on its axis in response to the rotational force. In response to the rotation of the rotor and a field current supplied to the rotor, an alternating current is generated in a stator wiring of the stator. A generator voltage regulator adjusts a voltage of this current by regulating the field current. A rectifier rectifies the alternating current. The rectified current set at the adjusted voltage is output to electric consumers and a battery of the vehicle. Electronic devices such as the regulator and rectifier are disposed on an anti-driving side of the rotor opposite to the driving side. That is, the pulley and the group of electronic devices are disposed away from each other with the rotor between.
Because the current is generated in the stator wiring, this wiring acts as a heat generating member. However, because the cooling performance of the alternator has recently been lowered, constitutional members of the alternator are inevitably heated by the stator wiring at high temperatures. Therefore, there is a probability that the members be heated so as to exceed those allowable temperatures and be broken.
To prevent the members from being excessively heated by the stator wiring, Published Japanese Patent First Publication No. H11-155270 has disclosed an alternator wherein a space factor indicating a space ratio of the stator wiring to an allowable space for the wiring is heightened to reduce electric resistance of the wiring to a half level. However, the rectifier is generally made of diodes connected with one another in a diode bridge, so that the rectifier also acts as a heat generating member. Therefore, a problem based on heat generated by the rectifier is not solved in this Publication.
In recent years, the alternator has been required to further increase its output power. Therefore, the rectifier and regulator disposed on the anti-driving side of the rotor are easily heated so as to exceed those allowable temperatures, and the rectifier and regulator are sometimes broken. Particularly, the regulator is an electronic circuit member for controlling the generated current of the alternator. Therefore, even though the regulator does not break easily, malfunctions can easily occur in the regulator. In this case, the battery is excessively charged so as to shorten the life of the battery. To prevent the malfunction of the regulator, a heat dissipating fin attached to the regulator has been modified to improve heat dissipation of the regulator. However, heat cannot be sufficiently dissipated from the regulator.
Further, in another publication, a temperature sensor is attached to a regulator. When the sensor detects that the regulator is heated at a predetermined temperature, the alternator stops generating an electrical energy. However, a manufacturing cost of the alternator is heightened due to the sensor and a control system for stopping the energy generation. Further, it is difficult to reliably operate the sensor. In addition, when the operation of the alternator is stopped often, the battery cannot be sufficiently charged.
Moreover, high temperature members such as an exhaust manifold of an engine are often disposed on a rear side of an alternator (i.e., anti-driving side of rotor) so as to be close to a regulator. In this case, the regulator is further heated.
Furthermore, Published Japanese Patent First Publication No. H05-199707 has disclosed an alternator wherein both a regulator and a rectifier are disposed on a front side of an alternator (i.e., driving side of rotor). However, the regulator still receives heat from the rectifier, and the heat cannot be sufficiently dissipated from the regulator.


The invention provides methods and apparatus. A portion of a memory array has a string of two or more non-volatile memory cells, a first select gate coupled in series with one non-volatile memory cell of the string of two or more non-volatile memory cells, and a second select gate coupled in series with the first select gate. A length of the second select gate is greater than a length of the first select gate.

Memory devices are typically provided as internal, semiconductor, integrated circuits in computers or other electronic devices. There are many different types of memory including random-access memory (RAM), read only memory (ROM), dynamic random access memory (DRAM), synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM), and flash memory.
Flash memory devices have developed into a popular source of non-volatile memory for a wide range of electronic applications. Flash memory devices typically use a one-transistor memory cell that allows for high memory densities, high reliability, and low power consumption. Changes in threshold voltage of the cells, through programming of charge storage or trapping layers or other physical phenomena, determine the data value of each cell. Common uses for flash memory include personal computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), digital cameras, digital media players, cellular telephones and removable memory modules.
Flash memory typically utilizes one of two basic architectures known as NOR flash and NAND flash. The designation is derived from the logic used to read the devices. In NOR flash architecture, a column of memory cells are coupled in parallel with each memory cell coupled to a bit line. In NAND flash architecture, a column of memory cells are coupled in series to form a string, commonly called a NAND string, of memory cells with only a memory cell at one end of the NAND string coupled to a bit line.
As the performance of electronic systems employing flash memory devices increases, flash memory device performance should also increase. A performance increase includes reducing power consumption, increasing speed, and increasing the memory density. One way to accomplish these tasks is by decreasing the size of the memory array and its individual devices.
Unfortunately, there can be resulting problems with decreasing device sizes. For example, as the channel length and gate oxide thickness are reduced in a field-effect transistor, leakage current generally increases. One type of leakage current is gate induced drain leakage (GIDL) that results from the depletion at the drain surface below the gate-drain overlap region.
GIDL can cause a problem referred to as program disturb during a programming operation of a flash memory array. For example, FIG. 1 illustrates a portion of a typical prior art NAND flash memory array. During a program operation to program a memory cell 101, the word line 102 coupled to that cell 101 may be biased with a 20V programming pulse. The bit line 104 coupled to that cell may be brought to ground potential. This provides a gate to source potential of 20V across the cell 101 to be programmed.
The other cells on the selected word line 102 will also have the 20V programming pulse applied. In order to inhibit these cells from being programmed, their bit lines 104 may be biased to Vcc. Additionally, the remaining unselected word lines may be biased with 10V pulses. This biasing creates a channel voltage of approximately 7V on the unselected cell 103. This provides a gate to source voltage of approximately 13V that is generally below the required programming voltage for such cells.
However, the resulting drain to gate field for the drain select gates (SGD) and source select gates (SGS) may, in this scenario, approach 7V, which can cause the 7V channel potential on the unselected cell 103 to leak away, thus creating the possibility that the unselected cell 103 is programmed. This is referred to in the art as program disturb.
Commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/216,755, filed on Aug. 31, 2005, uses multiple series-coupled select gates on the drain and/or source ends of NAND strings to enable each gate to be made using smaller feature sizes while achieving the same level of protection against GIDL and other forms of current leakage. However, during a read operation punch-through may still be a concern even with multiple select gates.
For the reasons stated above, and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the present specification, there is a need in the art for alternative memory device architectures.

Multiple select gate architecture with select gates of different lengths


Embodiments of the present disclosure are directed towards techniques and configurations for thermal management of an integrated circuit assembly using a jumping-drops vapor chamber. In one embodiment, an apparatus includes a die having a first side including a plurality of integrated circuit devices that are configured to generate heat when in operation, and a second side disposed opposite to the first side, and a vapor chamber including a liquid, an evaporator including a surface that is thermally coupled with the second side of the die, the evaporator being configured to evaporate the liquid to vapor, and a condenser including a superhydrophobic surface and configured to condense the vapor, wherein energy released from coalescence of condensed vapor on the superhydrophobic surface causes the condensed vapor to jump from the superhydrophobic surface of the condenser to the surface of the evaporator. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.

An integrated circuit (IC) device such as, for example, a die may be mounted on a package substrate to form an IC package assembly. A heat spreading element composed solely or primarily of a metal such as, for example, an integrated heat spreader and/or heat sink may be thermally coupled with the die to remove heat generated by the die when the die is in operation. For example, the heat may be generally conducted away from the die along a thermal pathway through the metal. Even when such heat spreading elements are composed of metals with high thermal conductivity such as, for example, copper, an in-plane temperature gradient may exist across the heat spreading element and reduce overall heat transfer effectiveness. For example, the gradient may result in a higher junction temperature (Tj) of the die or may require additional cooling power (e.g., higher fan power) to reduce the junction temperature.

Heat removal in an integrated circuit assembly using a jumping-drops vapor chamber


The present invention provides a separator for fuel cell containing: a flat plate member; a gas passage-side member provided on one side of the flat plate member and having passages for passing a reactant gas therethrough; and a cooling water passage-side member provided on the other side of the flat plate member and having passages for passing cooling water therethrough, wherein the gas passage-side member and the cooling water passage-side member are formed from first and second conductive resin compositions which are different from each other, respectively, and the difference between the thermal expansion coefficient of the gas passage-side member in its thickness direction and the thermal expansion coefficient of the cooling water passage-side member in a direction perpendicular to its thickness direction is 25×10−6 /K or smaller, and wherein the flat plate member contains at least one of the first and second conductive resin compositions.

In recent years, the demand for fuel cells in which chemical energy of a fuel is directly converted into electrical energy has been growing. In general, a fuel cell has a structure comprising a stack of many unit cells each comprising electrode plates, an electrolyte film sandwiched therebetween, and a separator disposed on an outer side of these.
FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic illustration showing the appearance of a general separator for fuel cells. This separator has a constitution in which a flat plate member 6 has first partition walls 7a protruding from one side thereof at a predetermined interval to form channels 8a through which a reactant gas (hydrogen or oxygen) is to be passed, and further has second partition walls 7b protruding from the other side thereof at a predetermined interval to form channels 8b through which cooling water is to be passed. Hereinafter, the side on which the channels 8a for passing a reactant gas therethrough have been formed is referred to as "gas passage-side", while the side on which the channels 8b for passing cooling water therethrough have been formed is referred to as "cooling water passage-side" (see FIG. 2).
In fabricating a fuel cell, many such fuel-cell separators 5 are stacked in the direction of projection of the partition walls 7a and 7b (upward/downward direction in the figure). The airtightness of the channels 8a and 8b is hence important, and strength and dimensional accuracy are required of the partition walls 7a and 7b. In the field where a high voltage is required as in, e.g., motor vehicles, several hundred unit cells are stacked to fabricate a cell. Since this stack is generally used under the conditions of about 80° C., the separators are required to have dimensional stability to heat (low thermal expansivity). In case where the separators have high thermal expansivity, the stack as a whole expands thermally and the clamping load hence increases. As a result, the fuel-cell separators themselves and the electrolyte films break. There are also cases where due to the insufficient strength, insufficient plate-thickness dimensional accuracy, and warpage of the separators, etc., stack assembly encounters difficulties in assembly operation, breakage, and other troubles.
In particular, the warpage of fuel-cell separators not only makes stack assembly difficult but also results in insufficient contact between unit cells after assembly. As a result, contact electrical resistance becomes uneven, leading to a decrease in power generation performance. There are also cases where an offset load breaks the fuel-cell separators themselves.
On the other hand, fuel-cell separators 5 are generally obtained by molding into a predetermined shape a conductive resin composition comprising a resin and a conductive filler dispersed therein, since this method is advantageous in productivity. Examples of such methods which have been proposed include: a method comprising dry-blending a phenolic resin with an expanded graphite, filling the blend into a mold, and compression-molding it (see reference 1); a method in which a powdery mixture obtained by dry-blending a phenolic resin with an expanded graphite is compacted to produce a preform, and this preform is cured and compression-molded (see reference 2); and a method comprising kneading a phenolic resin together with a carbon powder by means of a pressure kneader or the like, and compression-molding the mixture to obtain a molding (see reference 3).
However, those methods in which a conductive resin composition is molded have the following disadvantages. As the sectional view of FIG. 2 shows schematically, there is a difference in the orientation of the conductive filler, e.g., expanded graphite, between the thickness direction (upward/downward direction on the page) and the direction perpendicular to the thickness direction (left/right direction on the page) due to a difference in shape between the gas passage-side and the cooling water passage-side. Hereinafter, the direction perpendicular to the thickness direction is simply referred to as the horizontal direction. As a result, differences in thermal expansion arise, and local differences in elongation hence occur, resulting in warpage or undulation of the separator. Techniques for warpage reduction which have been proposed include: a method in which a powdery mixture of a thermosetting resin and a carbon powder is press-molded with heating, and the resultant molding is released from the mold and then heated while being sandwiched between smooth-surface plates, at a temperature which is 50-100% of the curing temperature (see reference 4); and a method in which a high-strength high-rigidity material is used as a frame material (see reference 5).
[Reference 1] JP 2000-48830 A
[Reference 2] JP 2000-77081 A
[Reference 3] JP 2000-243409 A
[Reference 4] JP 2000-243409 A
[Reference 5] JP 2002-358973 A
However, those related techniques for warpage reduction are ineffective in eliminating the differences in thermal expansion coefficient attributable to the difference in conductive-filler orientation between the gas passage-side and the cooling water passage-side, and the degree of warpage reduction attainable therewith is limited. Although use of a separator having a high elastic modulus can reduce warpage or undulation, the high elastic modulus may raise problems such as breakage, chipping, etc. in stack assembly.
An object of the invention is to provide a separator for fuel cells which is reduced in warpage. Another object of the invention is to provide a process by which a fuel-cell separator reduced in warpage is produced by a relatively easy economical method.

Separator for fuel cell and process for producing the same


In an emergable watermark superimposing method for superimposing a superimposition image on either a cover still image or a still image formed from a cover moving image, when an image after the superimposition image is superimposed thereon is converted, or a screen which displays thereon the image after the superimposition image is superimposed is photographed, the superimposition image is superimposed so as to be more emphasized.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to an emergable watermark superimposing method, an emergable watermark superimposing apparatus, and an emergable watermark superimposing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Problems occur in infringement of copyright which is caused by illegally coping paper documents, and illegal acts (will be referred to as "attacks") with employment of elaborate copied articles, which can be actually realized due to progress in copying techniques.
As techniques capable of opposing these attacks, there are printing techniques for printing characters and the like which restrain copying of paper documents. That is, when the relevant paper documents are copied, for instance, characters such as "COPY" appear on copied documents, which clearly indicate that the copied documents constitute copied articles. The above-described printing techniques are utilized m, for example, certificates and the like which are issued by self-governing bodies.
As publications for disclosing the above-described techniques, for instance, U.S. Pat. No. 7,359,087 specification is present. This publication describes "In a print control apparatus 1 that has a printing device 6 to print a document, a CPU 2 combines a remaining pattern image composed of dots larger than a minimum dot size readable by a color copying machine and a vanishing pattern image composed of dots having the same size as the larger dot and dots smaller than the minimum dot readable by the color copying machine to produce a reproduction checking image and causes the printing device 6 to print the reproduction checking image along with document print data on paper." (refer to Abstract).
Also, techniques for retraining not copying of paper documents, but copying of moving images have been proposed. For example, US Patent Application Publication 2006/0188012 specification describes "This invention relates to an apparatus for encoding data or the like, which disables the data to be copied in a condition where its good quality is maintained without deteriorating a quality of an output owing to the data before being copied. Synchronization signals VD and HD are separated from the analog image data Van are delayed and supplied to a clock generation circuit 1133 where a clock CLK is generated in a rage of an effective screen based on the synchronization signals. This clock signal CLK is shifted vertically and horizontally so that a phase of image data Vdg1 output from an A/D converter 1134 is also shifted. In this image data Vdg1, a signal-deteriorating factor is generated. An encoding section 1135 performs encoding by sampling, conversion encoding, and the like. By-shifting the phase of the image data Vdg1, a sampling position and/or a block position are caused to be shifted from a position where obtaining original encoding data relative to the image data Van1, thereby generating significant deterioration in the encoding section 1135." (refer to Abstract).

Emergable watermark superimposing method, emergable watermark superimposing apparatus, and emergable watermark superimposing system


A method for managing the electrical energy passing through a metal-air battery comprising a cell and the associated cell comprising a negative electrode, a first positive electrode referred to as the air electrode, and a second positive electrode referred to as the power electrode. The cell further comprises a third positive electrode. In a first charging phase, a charging voltage is applied to the cell, this voltage causing current to travel between the negative electrode and the second positive electrode, the first and third positive electrodes being electrically inactive. In a second charging phase, the charging voltage causes current to travel between the negative electrode and said third positive electrode, the first and second positive electrode being electrically inactive.

Metal-air battery cells generally consist of a negative electrode based on a metal such as zinc, iron, or lithium coupled to an air electrode. These two electrodes are generally contact with an aqueous alkaline electrolyte.
During the discharging of such a battery, oxygen is reduced at the positive electrode and metal is oxidized at the negative electrode:M→Mn++ne−  Discharging at the negative electrode:O2+2H2O+4e−→4OH−  Discharging at the positive electrode:
The advantage of metal-air systems lies in the use of a positive electrode of infinite capacity, as the oxygen consumed at the positive electrode does not need to be stored in the electrode but can be taken from the ambient air. Metal-air type electrochemical generators are known for their high specific energies, which can reach several hundred W−h/kg.
Air electrodes are used for example in alkaline fuel cells, which are particularly advantageous compared to other systems because of the high reaction kinetics at the electrodes and because of the absence of noble metals such as platinum.
An air electrode is a porous solid structure, usually of carbon powder, in contact with the liquid electrolyte. The interface between the air electrode and the liquid electrolyte is a so-called "triple-contact" interface where the active solid material of the electrode (this electrode generally further comprising a catalyst), the gaseous oxidant, meaning air, and the liquid electrolyte are present simultaneously. The air electrode is usually composed of carbon powder with its high surface area, providing a large reaction surface area and therefore a high current density relative to the geometric surface area of the electrode. A large reaction surface area is advantageous in compensating for the difference between the density of gaseous oxygen and that of a liquid. For example, the molar density of oxygen in air is about 0.03 mol/L compared to water which has a density of 55 mol/L. The large surface area of the carbon makes it possible to multiply the reaction sites in the air electrode.
A description of the different types of air electrodes for zinc-air batteries is described for example in the bibliographical article by V. Neburchilov et al., entitled "A review on air cathodes for zinc-air fuel cells," Journal of Power Sources 195 (2010) p. 1271-1291.
When a metal-air battery needs to be recharged electrically, the direction of the current is reversed. Oxygen is produced at the positive electrode and the metal is redeposited by reduction at the negative electrode:Mn++ne−→M  Recharging at the negative electrode:4OH−→O2+2H2O+4e−  Recharging at the positive electrode:
The air electrode is not designed to be used in the reverse direction, and tends to be mechanically destroyed by the hydraulic pressure formed during the production of oxygen. This hydraulic pressure generally causes the bonds to break between the carbon grains which constitute the air electrode. This degradation reduces the life of the battery.
In addition, the catalyst added to the air electrode to improve the energy efficiency of the oxygen reduction reaction degrades at the potential required for the reverse oxidation reaction when charging the battery. The corrosion of carbon in the presence of oxygen by oxidation of the carbon is also accelerated at higher potentials.
To remedy these stability problems, particularly during charging, it has been proposed to use a second positive electrode which is only used for charging the battery. A switch then allows connecting a positive terminal of a circuit to the second electrode during charging, and connecting this positive terminal to the air electrode during discharging of the battery. Application WO 2014/083267 describes an example of a battery using such a system to preserve the air electrode from degradation in the charging phase.
This second positive electrode, used during charging of the battery, is typically composed of a metal grid of nickel or a metal alloy. This electrode may also be composed of a material capable of storing a limited amount of electrical energy without oxygen evolution. An example of such a positive electrode is an electrode composed of nickel oxide hydroxide, NiO(OH).
During charging of the battery, it has been found that this second positive electrode could also suffer degradation related to oxygen evolution. This degradation occurs less quickly than in the air electrode, but leads to disintegration of the second positive electrode which gradually degrades the performance of the battery at each cycle.
Document WO2013/110097 discloses cells for metal-air batteries which make use of a first reversible metal electrode, an air electrode, and a second reversible electrode acting as a cathode in the discharging phase and as an anode in the charging phase. This document describes a two-stage discharge in which only the second positive electrode is used and only at the beginning of the discharge, and a second stage where the air electrode is used when the voltage across the battery has dropped sufficiently to reach a threshold value. In that document, the two discharging phases are consecutive and the voltage is controlled to switch from the first stage to the second stage. However, in batteries, the voltage measurement is not a good indicator of battery power and is only used to determine the charge state. In fact, in a battery (unlike in a resistor), the voltage does not vary much as the power varies and does so non-linearly, but it depends on other parameters such as the thermodynamic potential of the electrodes, the mass transport of ions in the electrolyte, charge accumulation phenomena at the interfaces and the activation barriers related to oxidation-reduction reactions or the charge state of the electrode. As a result, the voltage measurement conducted on a battery in document WO2013/110097 does not enable satisfactory management of the electrical power passing through the battery.
Document US2011/0250512 describes a metal-air cell comprising a negative electrode, a positive air electrode, an oxygen-evolution electrode, and a high efficiency electrode enabling the implementation of standard charging and discharging phases via the air electrode, and, in one embodiment, with better efficiency via the high efficiency electrode. A metal-air cell architecture and a method for managing the electrical energy passing through a metal-air battery are therefore sought that better protect the positive electrodes during charging and that further extend the life of the batteries.

Method for managing the electrical energy passing through a metal-air battery and associated cell


To provide a block copolymer composition having a good balance in transparency and impact resistance, and particularly having an excellent impact resistance, by making a molded product of injection molding under high sear condition in such a manner as to hardly generate anisotropy. A block copolymer composed of a hard segment block comprising a block made mainly of a vinyl aromatic hydrocarbon and a soft segment block comprising a block made mainly of a conjugated diene, characterized by having a remarkably improved impact resistance without degrading transparency in respect of not only an extrusion-molded product and a blow-molded product but also an injection-molded product, by blending two kinds of block copolymers having a hard segment block of a specific structure.

A block copolymer comprising a vinyl aromatic hydrocarbon and a conjugated diene, which has a relatively high vinyl aromatic hydrocarbon content, has been widely used for injection molding or extrusion molding of a sheet, a film or the like by utilizing properties such as transparency or impact resistance.
Particularly, some proposals have been made with regard to a block copolymer and a styrenic polymer composition having a block copolymer blended. The proposed examples include a branched block copolymer of two linear copolymers before coupling, which comprises vinyl-substituted aromatic hydrocarbon blocks of a high molecular weight content and a low molecular weight content at a number average molecular ratio of from 3 to 7, and its production method (as illustrated in JP-A-53-000286) and a branched block copolymer comprising polymer blocks of at least 3 monomer units of vinyl aromatic hydrocarbons and its production method (as illustrated in JP-A-07-173232).
Further, there have been proposed a linear copolymer composition having a vinyl aromatic hydrocarbon block portion molecular weight distribution of from 2.3 to 4.5 or a branched block copolymer composition having a vinyl aromatic hydrocarbon block portion molecular weight distribution of from 2.8 to 3.5 which is prepared by blending (as illustrated in JP-A-52-078260), or a method of combining branched block copolymers having a vinyl aromatic hydrocarbon block portion molecular weight distribution outside the range of from 2.8 to 3.5 (as illustrated in JP-A-57-028150).
However, according to these methods, these block copolymers and compositions prepared by blending these block copolymers with various thermoplastic resins had a poor balance in respect of transparency and impact resistance, and a molded product prepared by injection molding under high shearing condition tends to easily generate anisotropic properties and the molded product thus prepared was unsatisfactory because strength became weak in one respect.


Disclosed are various embodiments for generating bundle uniform resource locators (URL). A URL is generated that contains a parameter with a value corresponding to a product available in the electronic commerce system. At least one parameter with a value corresponding to configurable features of the product is also encoded in the URL. The URL parameters are validated to determine whether the product and configurable features are compatible.

In an electronic commerce system, bundles containing one or more products, product attributes, and/or features are assembled by users to browse, purchase, share, etc. Bundles are often generated with the use of form data or through the use of a user interface workflow generated by the electronic commerce system. This can make providing a link to the bundle for the purposes of sharing or driving traffic to the electronic commerce system difficult.

Encoding and decoding of product properties in a uniform resource locator


Various aspects of the invention provide a method, apparatus, and software for selecting interconnectivity rules for a computer network environment and visualization on a display of a data processing system interconnectivity rules in an auto provisioning environment, including: selecting a network environment specification having characteristics describing the environment, the characteristics including: number of network security tiers, firewalls, and other network constraints; displaying a graphical representation of the selected network environment, including security tiers, and proposed firewalls, to a user on the display; selecting network objects for the selected network environment, the network objects being selected from a group of objects including: operating systems and other software applications having predefined or configurable characteristics including interconnectivity rules, and firewall rules; populating the displayed network environment with the selected objects; determining network interconnectivity requirements in the selected network environment for the selected objects from their characteristics; and displaying graphical visualizations of the selected objects and graphical visualizations of the network interconnectivity requirements of the objects in appropriate regions of the displayed network environment.

As is well known at the present time, a computer network usually includes a number of interconnected network devices on which software applications reside. The network enables information exchange between the applications residing on different network devices.
The design and implementation of computer network environments, particularly auto provisioning systems is extremely complex, and correspondingly difficult to implement effectively without error. Unfortunately, due to the vagaries of human nature, firewalls have become critical to computer networks to safeguard data and applications against accidental, unauthorized or malicious acts of external people or organizations, such as through the internet, or internally, within an organization. This has caused increased complexity to the design of computer network environments, making it more difficult for the design of effective and appropriate firewalls and the selection of rules for the firewalls. This can be particularly true in auto provisioning systems.
Current known network infrastructure auto provisioning systems do not validate the effectiveness or accuracy of computer network architectures that it receives requests to provision. This essentially forces users of the system to have a clear understanding of what they are submitting to the system. In an auto provisioning system it is useful to have a user interface, such as a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for the submission of requests to the system. The request preparation GUI should provide a very clear end-to-end picture of the requested network environment in order to minimize human error. The user interface should display the system environment, including: (1) servers; (2) applications installed on servers and (3) storage mounted on servers; (4) network structure; and, (5) firewall rules for effecting firewalls in the environment. One limitation is that most GUI's attend to only one or two of these at a time, but not all at once.
It would be convenient if a network firewall application could be configured automatically to protect a network; however, because of the varying, and possibly conflicting, needs of different network systems, firewall applications tend to be complex and require configuration to allow for the needs of the organizations implementing these systems.
For instance, in a shared hosting environment, in performing configuration on that environment, one has to be extremely sensitive to the possibility that a single change could adversely affect numerous network users if requested incorrectly by network support personnel.
Request visualization is not unknown. For instance, Terraspring's Graphical User Interface provides a request visualization graphical user interface—but it does not present a visualization of the firewall rules that will be configured during the fulfillment of the provisioning request (Firewall rule summary and customization may be provided textually within submenus). This approach does not provide a good visual summary of the entire auto provisioning request (as the existence or content of the submenus may not be apparent to users), which opens opportunity to submitting inadequate or incorrect requests to the auto provisioning system.
European Patent Application EP 1024627, published Aug. 2, 2000, directed to a method or apparatus for managing a firewall, discloses a framework for representing firewall-independent security policy, and network topology, but does not explain why rules are present. It does not provide a visualization of the firewall rules that should be configured to enable the user's auto provisioning request in the manner of the present invention.
European Patent Application EP 0910197, published Apr. 4, 1999 appears to be directed to providing network firewalls with dynamic rule processing, but does not provide a visualization of the firewall rules that should be configured to enable the user's auto provisioning request in the manner of the present invention.

Visualization of firewall rules in an auto provisioning environment

International Business Machines Corporation


A shipping container integrates a sharps disposal container with a new product storage container for shipping. The storage container stores new product. A sharps disposal container receives used sharps. One of the storage container and the sharps disposal container is disposed within the other of the storage container and the sharps disposal container for shipping. A lid is adapted to be connected to the outermost container of the sharps disposal container and the storage container for shipping and to a top of the sharps disposal container for receiving used sharps.

In certain circumstances, it is desirable to inject medication directly into human tissue. Typically, syringes or pen injection devices are used to inject medicaments into tissue areas, such as the intramuscular tissue layer, the subcutaneous tissue layer, and the intradermal tissue layer.
The assembly and operation of a typical pen injection device, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, is described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0229562, published on Oct. 12, 2006, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
Pen injection devices, such as the exemplary pen injector 100, as shown in FIG. 1, typically comprise a dose knob/button 24, an outer sleeve 13, and a cap 21. The dose knob/button 24 allows a user to set the dosage of medication to be injected. The outer sleeve 13 is gripped by the user when injecting medication. The cap 21 is used by the user to securely hold the pen injector device 100 in a shirt pocket, purse or other suitable location.
FIG. 2 is an exploded view of an exemplary drug delivery pen shown in FIG. 1. The dose knob/button 24 has a dual purpose and is used to both set the dosage of the medication to be injected and to inject the dosed medicament via the lead screw 7 and stopper 15 through the medicament cartridge 12, which is attached to the drug delivery pen through a lower housing 17. In standard drug delivery pens, the dosing and delivery mechanisms are all found within the outer sleeve 13 and are not described in greater detail here as they are understood by those knowledgeable of the prior art. The distal movement of the plunger or stopper 15 within the medicament cartridge 12 causes medication to be forced into the needle 11 of the hub 20. The medicament cartridge 12 is sealed by septum 16, which is punctured by a septum penetrating needle cannula 18 located within the hub 20. The hub 20 is preferably screwed onto the lower housing 17, although other attachment means can be used such as attaching to the cartridge. To protect a user, or anyone who handles the pen injection device 100, an outer shield 69, which attaches to the hub 20, covers the hub. An inner shield 59 covers the patient needle 11 within the outer shield 69. The inner shield 59 can be secured to the hub 20 to cover the patient needle 11 by any suitable means, such as an interference fit or a snap fit. The outer shield 69 and inner shield 59 are removed prior to use. The cap 21 fits snugly against outer sleeve 13 to allow a user to securely carry the drug delivery pen 100.
The medicament cartridge 12 is typically a glass tube sealed at one end with the septum 16 and sealed at the other end with the stopper 15. The septum 16 is pierceable by a septum penetrating cannula 18 in the hub 20, but does not move with respect to the medicament cartridge 12. The stopper 15 is axially displaceable within the medicament cartridge 12 while maintaining a fluid tight seal.
Following an injection, the used needle 11 and hub assembly 20, or "sharps", is removed and must be properly disposed of. Used sharps may become contaminated by body fluids and the like creating a hazard for anyone that may handle them following their use. Sharps disposal containers store the disposed sharps and prevent unintentional contact with any object disposed therein.
One problem associated with shipping new product and a sharps disposal container is that the new product and the sharps disposal container are each contained in separate rigid containers, such that the overall size of the shipping container is the size of both containers combined. Accordingly, a need exists for a shipping container that integrates a sharps disposal container with a new product storage container such that the size of the shipping container is substantially the same size as the larger of the storage container or the sharps disposal container.

Shipping container integrating a sharps disposal container with a new product storage container


A system includes a first steam generator configured to generate a first boiler feedwater, a second steam generator configured to generate a second boiler feedwater, a common boiler feedwater configured to combine the first boiler feedwater and the second boiler feedwater to produce a common boiler feedwater, and a heater configured to receive the common boiler feedwater to heat a gas.

The subject matter disclosed herein relates to using boiler feedwater, and more specifically, to using boiler feedwater supplied by two or more steam generators.
In general, an integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plant converts a fuel source into syngas through the use of a gasifier. A typical IGCC gasifier may combine a fuel source (e.g., a coal slurry) with steam and oxygen to produce the syngas. The product syngas may be provided to a combustor to combust the syngas with oxygen to drive one or more gas turbines. Heat from the IGCC power plant may be used to generate steam to drive one or more steam turbines. Certain IGCC power plants may include two or more trains with each train including a gasifier and a gas turbine. Additional piping and/or hardware may be included in such IGCC power plants to help reduce or prevent upsets in one portion of the IGCC power plant from affecting other portions or the entire plant. Such additional hardware and/or piping may increase the cost expenditures associated with these IGCC power plants.

System and method for using boiler feedwater


Method for the grinding of a gear wheel workpiece using a dressable worm grinding wheel, wherein the worm grinding wheel is rotationally driven about a tool axis of rotation and the gear wheel workpiece is rotationally driven about a workpiece axis of rotation, and relative movements are executed between the worm grinding wheel and gear wheel workpiece, and wherein after the execution of a dressing procedure of the worm grinding wheel, which is carried out by means of a rotationally-drivable dressing unit, the following steps are carried out:                executing a relative shift movement between the worm grinding wheel and gear wheel workpiece parallel to the tool axis of rotation,        executing an axially-parallel relative movement between the worm grinding wheel and gear wheel workpiece in parallel or diagonally to the workpiece axis of rotation,        wherein a ratio between the shift movement and axially-parallel relative movement is specified, which is variable.

The elements of an exemplary known grinding machine 100 are shown in FIG. 1, wherein only the essential elements are identified in this illustration, specifically these are the tool spindle 1 including a grinding tool 2 and a workpiece spindle 3 having a workpiece W1. Moreover, some of the axes are shown in this illustration, which can be used for the grinding of the workpiece W1. These are the three linear axes X, Y, and Z. Moreover, there is an axis of rotation B, to be able to rotationally drive the grinding tool 2. The tool spindle 1 including the grinding tool 2 can be pivoted about a pivot axis A, to bring the pitch of the worm grinding wheel 2 into correspondence with the angle of inclination of the workpiece W1. Furthermore, there is an axis of rotation C (also called workpiece axis), to be able to rotationally drive the workpiece W1. It can be seen on the basis of FIG. 1 that an entire array of coordinated linear, rotational, and pivot movements are required to be able to perform grinding of a workpiece W1 using a grinding tool 2.
One of the factors which has an influence on the cost-effectiveness of such a grinding machine 100 is the service life of the grinding tool 2 (in the form of a worm grinding wheel here). The more rapidly the tool 2 wears out, the fewer workpieces W1 can be machined using a tool 2. There are therefore various strategies to use a worm grinding wheel 2 as cost-effectively as possible.
Inter alia, various shift strategies are used. Continuous shifting (sometimes also called diagonal shifting) is a procedure in which the grinding machine 100 executes a continuous shifting movement parallel to the Z axis to displace the worm grinding wheel 2 in relation to the workpiece W1. It is ensured by this form of shifting that regions having new and/or sufficiently cutting abrasive grains of the worm grinding wheel 2 are used. Not only the geometrical accuracy of the gear wheel workpieces W1 is ensured by the shifting, but rather also thermal damage on the tooth flanks can also be substantially prevented.
There are also non-continuous shift strategies, which are based, for example, on the worm grinding wheel 2 being divided into different regions for roughing and finishing of a workpiece W1.
There are also shift strategies in which shifting takes place in each case after the machining of a workpiece W1, for example, to be able to use another region of the worm grinding wheel 2 for machining the next workpiece.
Moreover, a grinding stroke is performed, which is necessary to be able to grind workpieces W1 over their entire tooth width b2. The grinding stroke comprises a linear movement of the worm grinding wheel 2 parallel to the X axis of the machine 100 in the case of a spur-toothed spur gear W1, as shown in FIG. 1.
The shift strategies for continuous shifting are typically defined according to the prior art by a ratio of the shift travel to the stroke travel. i.e., in conventional grinding, the absolute value of the continuous offset of the worm grinding wheel 2 is defined by the constant ratio of shift travel to stroke travel, wherein this definition can take place specifically by stroke. In these shift strategies, the shift travel is a length along the worm axis (referred to as the B axis here), i.e., along the worm width b0, and the stroke travel is a length along the workpiece axis (referred to as the C axis here).
Furthermore, an infeed movement is executed to cause a tooth of the worm grinding wheel 2 to penetrate up to a final depth into a tooth gap of the gear wheel workpiece W1. The infeed movement takes place in the example of FIG. 1 parallel to the Y axis of the machine 100.

Method and grinding machine for grinding a gear wheel workpiece


The present invention discloses a system and method using the human ErbB3 receptor, p85-sErbB3, as a negative regulator of heregulin-stimulated ErbB2, ErbB3, and ErbB4 activation. The present invention also discloses a system and method of p85-sErbB3 binding to heregulin with an affinity comparable to that of full-length ErbB3, and competitively inhibiting high affinity heregulin binding to ErbB2/3 heterodimers on the cell surface of breast carcinoma cells. The present invention also uses p85-sErbB3 to inhibit heregulin-induced phosphorylation of ErbB2, ErbB3, and ErbB4 in cells and uses p85-sErbB3 as a negative regulator of heregulin-stimulated signal transduction and as a block for cell growth. The present invention is also directed to nucleic acids and expression vectors encoding p85-sErbB3, host cells harboring such expression vectors, and methods of preparing the protein. The present invention discloses a system and method of therapeutic applications in human malignancies associated with heregulin-mediated cell growth such as breast and prostate cancer.

The heregulins (also called neuregulins, neu differentiation factor (NDF), acetylcholin receptor inducing activity (ARIA), glial growth factors (GGFs)) are a family of epidermal growth factor-like growth factors that activate members of the ErbB/EGF receptor family (Holmes, Sliwkowski et al. 1992; Peles, Bacus et al. 1992; Wen, Peles et al. 1992; Falls, Rosen et al. 1993; Marchionni, Goodearl et al. 1993). Isoforms of heregulins, all of which arise from splice variants of a single gene, NRG-1 (neuregulin-1), have been cloned and classified into the α and β subgroups based on structural differences in their EGF binding domains (Holmes, Sliwkowski et al. 1992).
ErbB3-mediated signal transduction exerted by heregulins has been implicated in the regulation of diverse biological events including Schwann cell differentiation, neural regulation of skeletal muscle differentiation, heart development, and proliferation and differentiation of normal and malignant breast epithelial cells (Alroy and Yarden 1997; Sundaresan, Penuel et al. 1999). Research has shown that breast carcinoma cells respond to heregulin through proliferation, differentiation, as well as morphogenesis. Carcinoma cells expressing heregulin are hormone-independent and correlated to the ability for metastasis in experimental studies.
ErbB3 is a transmembrane glycoprotein encoded by the c-erbB3 gene (Kraus, Issing et al. 1989; Plowman, Whitney et al. 1990). The ErbB3 receptor belongs to the ErbB family which is composed of four growth factor receptor tyrosine kinases, known as ErbB1/EGFR, ErbB2/Neu, ErbB4, as well as ErbB3. ErbB3 and ErbB4 are receptors for heregulins and ErbB2 is a coreceptor (Carraway and Burden 1995). These receptors are structurally related and include three functional domains: an extracellular ligand-binding domain, a transmembrane domain, and a cytoplasmic tyrosine kinase domain (Plowman, Culouscou et al. 1993). The extracellular domain can be further divided into four subdomains (I-IV), including two cysteine-rich regions (II and IV) and two flanking regions (I and III). The ErbB3 is unusual among receptor tyrosine kinases in that its catalytic domain is defective. Despite its lack of intrinsic catalytic activity, ErbB3 is an important mediator of heregulin responsiveness. Heregulin binding induces ErbB3 to associate with other members of the ErbB family to form heterodimeric receptor complexes. ErbB3 then transactivates the kinase of its partner receptor which initiates a variety of cytoplasmic signaling cascades.
The ErbB3 receptor, together with ErbB2, is an important receptor involved in cellular growth and differentiation. Particular attention has focused on the role of ErbB3 as a coreceptor of ErbB2 in the area of cancer research. Transgenic mice that have been engineered to overexpress heregulin in mammary glands have been reported to exhibit persistent terminal end buds and, over time, to develop mammary adenocarcinomas (Krane and Leder 1996). ErbB3 expression studies on tumor tissues and on cell lines show frequent co-expression of ErbB2 and ErbB3 receptors (Alimandi, Heidaran et al. 1995; Meyer and Birchmeier 1995; Robinson, He et al. 1996; Siegel, Ryan et al. 1999). In addition, both ErbB2 and ErbB3 are activated in mammary tumors formed in transgenic mice harboring only the activated form of ErbB2 (Siegel, Ryan et al. 1999). A lot of cell lines used for experimental tumor formation studies are either estrogen-dependent (MCF-7 and T47D, the low ErbB2 expressers) or estrogen-independent (SKBR3, high ErbB2 expressers). However, these cell lines do not exhibit metastatic phenotypes. When MCF-7 cells are transfected to overexpress ErbB2, MCF-7 cells gain estrogen-independent phenotype, however, they never metastasize. On the other hand, the MCF-7 cells overexpressing heregulin gains metastatic phenotype, suggesting heregulin's active role in metastasis (Hijazi, Thompson et al. 2000; Tsai, Homby et al. 2000).
Five alternate ErbB3 transcripts arise from read-through of an intron and the use of alternative polyadenylation signals (Lee and Maihle 1998; Katoh, Yazaki et al. 1993). Using 3′-RACE the inventors have isolated four novel c-erbB3 cDNA clones of 1.6, 1.7, 2.1, and 2.3 kb from a human ovarian carcinoma-derived cell line (Lee and Maihle 1998). p85-sErbB3 of 543 aa, encoded by a 2.1 kb alternate c-erbB3 transcript (cDNA clone R31F), is composed of subdomains I through III and the first third of subdomain IV, and has a unique 24 amino acid carboxy-terminal sequence. p45-sErbB3 of 312 aa, encoded by a 1.7 kb alternate c-erbB3 transcript (cDNA clone R2F) contains subdomains I, II, and a portion of subdomain III of the extracellular domain of ErbB-3 followed by two unique glycine residues. p50-sErbB3 of 381 aa, encoded by a 1.6 kb alternate c-erbB3 transcript (cDNA clone R1F) contains subdomains I, II, and a portion of subdomain III of the extracellular domain of ErbB-3 followed by 30 unique amino acids. p75-sErbB3 of 515 aa, encoded by a 2.3 kb alternate c-erbB3 transcript (cDNA clone R35F), is composed of subdomains I through III, and has a unique 41 amino acid carboxy-terminal sequence (FIG. 1) (Lee and Maihle 1998).
Using various recombinant soluble forms of EGFR, it has been shown that efficient inhibition of full-length EGFR activation by dominant-negative heterodimerization occurs only when these deletion mutants retain the transmembrane domain in addition to the extracellular domain (Redemann, Holzmann et al. 1992). Similarly, a recombinant dominant-negative ErbB3 mutant with a deleted cytoplasmic domain but which retains its transmembrane domain can inhibit full-length ErbB2 and ErbB3 activation (Ram, Schelling et al. 2000). In contrast, in avian tissues, expression of a naturally occurring sEGFR/ErbB1 inhibits TGFα dependent transformation (Flickinger, Maihie et al. 1992). Soluble EGFR secreted by the A431 human carcinoma cell line also has been reported to inhibit the kinase activity of purified full-length EGFR in a ligand-independent manner (Basu, Raghunath et al. 1989). In no case do these soluble EGF/ErbB1 receptors function as antagonists through high affinity ligand-binding. Similarly, herstatin, a naturally occurring soluble ErbB2 protein which inhibits ErbB2 activation appears to function by blocking ErbB2 dimerization (Doherty, Bond et al. 1999).
The ErbB3 protein, specifically the p85-sErbB3 and p45 sErbB3 isoforms, is unique among other naturally occurring or recombinant soluble ErbB receptors in that it binds specifically to heregulin with high affinity and inhibits its binding to cell surface receptors and consequently inhibit heregulin-induced activation of the receptors and their downstream effectors. Thus sErbB3, specifically p85-sErbB3 and p45-sErbB3, can be used as a therapeutic reagent for heregulin-induced malignancy such as mammary and prostate tumors.
Heretofore, production and purification methods for, therapeutic uses of, and useful compositions containing, this protein, referred to herein as p85-sErbB3 have not been available.