A waveguide to microstrip transition (124) formed in a multi-layer substrate (208) is disclosed. The waveguide to microstrip transition (124) may be incorporated into a hermetically sealed package including a metal base (202), a multi-layer circuit (208), a metal ring (206), and a metal cover (204). The multi-layer circuit (208) has at least a first dielectric layer (230), a second dielectric layer (222), and a first conductive layer (218) disposed between the bottom side of the first dielectric layer (230) and the top side of the second dielectric layer (222). The multi-layer circuit (208) includes a waveguide (234). An electromagnetically reflective material (236) coats the walls of the waveguide (234) to allow signals to propagate by reflection through the waveguide (234) toward the first dielectric layer (230). Plated through vias (126) are located in at least the first dielectric layer (230). The plated through vias (126) are arranged to form an approximate outline around the land region on the first dielectric layer (230). The plated through vias (126) form a waveguide extension to the waveguide (234) that guides signals through the first dielectric layer. A microstrip (112) is located on the top side of the first dielectric layer (230). The microstrip (112) connects to an E-plane probe (113) located over the waveguide (234) and inside the waveguide extension.

The present invention relates to an apparatus for coupling a signal traveling in a waveguide onto a microstrip. More specifically, the invention relates to the construction of a waveguide to microstrip transition as a directly fabricated and hermetically sealed packaging structure, which may also connect the microstrip to integrated circuits operating at millimeter-wave or microwave frequencies.
Both waveguides and microstrips are devices that transport electromagnetic energy (hereafter "signals") from point to point. A waveguide is generally implemented as a conduit with an inner electromagnetically reflecting surface. Signals introduced into the interior of the waveguide propagate along the interior of the waveguide by reflecting back and forth between the walls of the waveguide. Waveguides are generally circular or rectangular in cross-section and provide for low loss transmission of the signals.
Waveguides have a critical wavelength for passage of signals within, related to the waveguide geometry. Signals with wavelengths greater than the critical wavelength are unable to propagate in the waveguide. Thus, the structure of the waveguide intrinsically serves to filter out undesired signals. It is often necessary, for example in satellite applications, to process the signal with integrated circuitry. However, a complication involved in constructing waveguides connected to integrated circuitry is that the waveguide structure tends to be large in relation to the integrated circuitry. Thus, in the past, waveguides required additional fabrication steps, incurred additional cost, and suffered from lower reliability when used in conjunction with integrated circuitry, including microstrips.
A microstrip is a thin conducting strip placed on top of a dielectric material. The dielectric material, in turn, is supported by a conducting plate, typically grounded. A microstrip can be fabricated directly in an integrated circuit process by depositing a thin conducting strip on the surface of the substrate. An entire set of integrated circuit electronics, including a microstrip, often occupies far less geometric volume than the corresponding waveguide structure. Microstrips are suitable for use as a high bandwidth, miniaturized, cost effective signal transmission line. Because of these advantages, microstrip lines are used in a great number of commercial microwave and millimeter-wave applications.
Many commercial and military satellite systems, for example, use microstrips coupled to waveguides in different portions of the system. For example, a satellite antenna may guide an uplink beam through a waveguide, then to a downconverter connected to a microstrip for processing. Thus, a key factor in the operation of commercial and military satellite systems is a waveguide to microstrip transition which provides low loss signal coupling between the microstrip and the waveguide.
One patent related to coupling signals between waveguides and microstrips is U.S. Pat. No. 4,453,142 to Earl R. Murphy entitled Microstrip to Waveguide Transition. Murphy discloses a microstrip to waveguide transition for use in the millimeter-wave frequency range. Murphy's waveguide consists of a solid metal rectangular waveguide that is attached to a substrate. A tab of the substrate carrying the microstrip extends into the waveguide.
The solid metal waveguide used in Murphy is rigidly connected to the base, for example by bolting. A wall of the waveguide is pierced to provide an opening for the microstrip. The base, waveguide, and microstrip are assembled to provide a waveguide to microstrip transition. Because the microstrip extends through a metallic wall of the waveguide, the microstrip is necked to help minimize shunt capacitance between the microstrip and the waveguide. Murphy, however, does not address the difficulties associated with forming a waveguide to microstrip transition in a single, easy to manufacture integrated circuit package.
Other prior waveguide to microstrip designs use microstrip, stripline, and coaxial interfaces to construct input/output ports to the microstrip. While these interfaces serve to provide low loss transmission of the internal signal to the external connections over a wide range of frequencies, acceptable performance of these interfaces requires complicated and time consuming circuit tuning unsuitable for large volume manufacturing. Furthermore, previous approaches employing multi-layer Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramic (LTCC) substrates for monolithic millimeter-wave integrated circuit (MMIC) packaging applications have been limited by the input/output frequency (microwaves) interface. The conventional interface uses microstrip and stripline structures to launch microwaves onto the substrate. The conventional interface yields poor electrical performance at millimeter-wave frequencies because of parasitic inductance and capacitance and other high frequency effects, thereby limiting usefulness to frequencies below 40 GHz.
A need remains for an improved transition structure from waveguide to microstrip on multi-layer substrate which overcomes the disadvantages discussed above and previously experienced.


The invention provides a method and system for scheduling for links having changing parameters. The method and system for scheduling for links having changing parameters is responsive to variations in communication capacity of communication links, such as wireless communication links in a wireless communication system. A BSC communicates with a plurality of CPE, including dynamically varying communication parameters for each CPE and substantially simultaneously scheduling traffic for each such CPE in response to those varying communication parameters. The BSC can schedule communication with each individual CPE in response to both (1) requested communication bandwidth and (2) varying communication capacity of the communication link between the BSC and that individual CPE. In a preferred embodiment, the BSC communicates with each CPE during a TDD frame. Sequences of such frames can each have differing communication parameters and can each be separately processed by the scheduling technique.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to scheduling for links having changing parameters, such as for example those found in wireless communication systems including adaptive wireless communication.
2. Related Art
Wireless communication between a sender and a receiver includes sending information using a wireless communication link, in which the sender modulates information onto a wireless communication channel (such as a frequency band reserved for wireless communication between the sender and the receiver), and the receiver demodulates that information from the wireless communication channel, so as to recover the original information. The wireless communication link includes multiple (physical and other) characteristics, including characteristics of the sender's equipment and the receiver's equipment, characteristics of objects on or near communication pathways between the sender and the receiver, and characteristics of other communications overlapping communication between the sender and the receiver.
One problem with known systems is that, due to changes in the characteristics of the communication link between the sender and receiver, the communication capacity of the communication link can vary substantially over time. In attempting to allocate traffic between (and among) senders and receivers, known methods of scheduling presume that communication capacity of the communication link is relatively fixed. Accordingly, known methods of scheduling can result in relatively ineffective or inefficient communication between the sender and the receiver.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a technique for scheduling for links having changing parameters that is not subject to drawbacks of the known art.

Scheduling for links having changing parameters


A semi-conductive or insulating composition includes an ethylene/octene copolymer and at least one additional polymer, such as ethylene/vinyl acetate. The composition may also include carbon black and other additives. The composition may be used as a semi-conductive or insulating layer in such applications as electrical cables.

This invention relates to polymer compositions, particularly ethylene/octene copolymer-containing compositions, suitable for use as semi-conductive and insulating compositions such as in electrical cables. More particularly, the present invention relates to semi-conductive and insulating compositions including an ethylene/octene copolymer and another polymer, such as an ethylene/vinyl acetate copolymer. The polymeric composition may also contain such additives as carbon black, antioxidants and curatives, depending on the final use of the polymeric composition.
Ethylene/vinyl acetate is known as a useful polymer in formulating polymeric compositions, particularly for use in electrical conductors such as power cables and wire. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,612,139 to Kawasaki et al. discloses semi-conducting compositions containing between 59 and 84% by weight of an ethylene/vinyl acetate copolymer. The balance of the compositions disclosed therein includes carbon black, antioxidants and curatives. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,305,849 also to Kawasaki et al. discloses insulating compositions containing either polyethylene or ethylene/vinyl acetate as the polymer component. The compositions further include polyethylene glycol, antioxidants and curatives.
The use of other polyolefin polymers to form polymer compositions is also known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,812,505 to Topcik discloses heat and water tree resistant compositions containing copolymers of ethylene and an .alpha.-olefin. Examples of the polymers are polyethylene, ethylene/1-butene, ethylene/propylene/1,4-hexadiene, ethylene/propylene/ethylidene and ethylene/propylene.
However, none of the references discloses the incorporation of an ethylene/octene copolymer and a second polymer into a polymeric formulation, or the specific combination of both an ethylene/vinyl acetate copolymer and an ethylene/octene copolymer into an insulating or semi-conductive polymeric composition.
Other patent references disclose the use of octene monomers, such as 1-octene, in polymer compositions. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,278,272 discloses substantially linear polymers incorporating ethylenically unsaturated monomers such as 1-octene into the polymer compositions. U.S. Pat. No. 4,997,713 discloses polymeric formulations for electrical cables, wherein the polymeric formulation comprises (1) an ethylene/.alpha.-olefin copolymer and (2) an ethylene homopolymer, an ethylene/alkyl acrylate copolymer, an ethylene/alkyl acrylate/acrylic acid terpolymer, or a mixture thereof.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,851,463 also discloses the possible inclusion of ethylene/1-octene into a fire retardant polymeric composition, wherein the fire retardant polymeric composition includes an ethylene copolymer, a C.sub.2 -C.sub.6 .alpha.-olefin polymer, and other additives. However, the patent does not disclose a polymeric composition specifically comprising an ethylene/octene copolymer.


It is an object to obtain a high-resolution image generation apparatus that can generate a high-quality image by sorting out good portions from faulty portions in optical flow. The present invention includes: a hard disk that stores multi-viewpoint image information and parameter information of a base image and a plurality of reference images; an optical flow computation unit that extracts a plurality of pairs of the base image and a reference image, the plurality of pairs each including a different reference image, and computes optical flow for each pair; a depth information computation unit that computes depth information which indicates depth of each pixel of the base image for each pair, based on optical flow and the parameter information; and an optical flow sorting unit that determines whether or not each piece of pixel-based correspondence information included in the optical flow of each pair is to be used for improving a resolution of the base image, based on two pieces of the depth information.

As conventional art related to the generation of a high-resolution image, a method is discussed in which in an image obtained from a radio wave observation satellite, a range of degradation in the image is identified in advance and the range is excluded from a process to perform resolution improvement, thereby avoiding a problem that may arise in resolution improvement (see Patent Literature 1).
In a resolution improvement process using a moving image as input, a method is discussed in which in order to reduce the influence of shielding that occurs, for example, when an object passes in front of another object, a shielding pattern is detected and is excluded from the process, thereby allowing a high-quality resolution improvement process (see Patent Literature 2).

High-resolution image generation apparatus, high-resolution image generation method, and high-resolution image generation program


A flue gas treatment apparatus for removing sulfur contents contained in combustion flue gas, includes a treatment agent feeder to feed a treatment agent into a flue through which the combustion flue gas flows, a cooler to cool the combustion flue gas to which the treatment agent has been fed and condense SO3 components in the combustion flue gas, an electric dust collection apparatus provided in the flue, a desulfurization apparatus based on a lime-gypsum process, and a circulation line for feeding a portion of the dust particles recovered by the electric dust collection apparatus into the flue that is provided on an upstream side of the cooler in the direction of flow of the flue gas for circulated use thereof as the treatment agent.

Technical Field
The present invention relates to a flue gas treatment apparatus and to a flue gas treatment method for removing sulfur contained in combustion flue gas.
Background Art
Fossil fuels such as heavy oil, coal, and the like contain sulfur, and when such a fossil fuel is combusted in a boiler or the like, the sulfur contents are oxidized in a furnace and most of it is oxidized into sulfur dioxide (SO2) gas, and some of the sulfur dioxide gas is further oxidized to be converted into sulfur trioxide (SO3) gas. When SO3 gas is cooled in a smoke exhaust system, the cooled SO3 gas turns into sulfuric acid (SO3) mist. SO3 mist consists of condensed sulfuric acid, and if coal is used as the fuel, SO3 mist does not cause corrosion because SO3 mist is "sprinkled" over a large amount of coal ash; on the other hand, if a fuel containing low ash content such as oil is used, SO3 mist may often cause corrosion because the content of ash over which SO3 mist is to be "sprinkled" is low. In particular, if a fuel including very high sulfur contents such as heavy oil is used, a large amount of SO3 is generated, and thus, corrosion due to SO3 that may occur in devices such as a dust collection apparatus and a flue that are installed in the smoke exhaust system has become a serious problem.
SO3 mist consists of fine particles that are precipitated in a vapor phase and are difficult to collect even if a flue gas desulfurization apparatus is installed, and most of it may remain uncollected and pass through the gas desulfurization apparatus to be released from the stack as violet smoke. Therefore, a conventional flue gas treatment facility provided for power generation equipment in which the flue gas includes low ash content and the amount of generated SO3 is large (i.e., the conversion rate of S is high) has been known, in which calcium carbonate (CaCO3) is fed by injection for adsorption of SO3 at a location downstream of a denitrification apparatus, and thus, SO3 is separated and removed as gypsum to prevent corrosion of equipment that may occur due to SO3 (Patent Literature 1).
In addition, a conventional apparatus has been known, in which the temperature of the flue gas is lowered to a temperature at which SO3 in the flue gas changes into SO3 fumes, the SO3 fumes are adsorbed to charged solid particles such as calcium carbonate that has been electrically charged, and thereby, SO3 is separated and removed (Patent Literature 2). FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram which illustrates such a conventional apparatus.
In the apparatus illustrated in the drawing, calcium carbonate is injected by calcium carbonate feeding means 22 into combustion flue gas, the combustion flue gas is cooled by temperature lowering means 3, and thereby SO3 is condensed and adsorbed by calcium carbonate. In a desulfurization apparatus 5, the remaining calcium carbonate that has not reacted with SO3 is used as a material for the lime-gypsum method and SO2 is separated as gypsum.

Flue gas treatment apparatus and flue gas treatment method


A banking service platform is provided that enables bank-centric access and control by a customer at a remote location of financial information, products and services maintained by a bank at a central location through an access gateway and provides an access gateway from the bank to non-bank information, products and services of providers not otherwise related to the bank.

An increasing number of people are demanding more convenience to access various types of consumer services, including banking, bill paying, shopping, travel and other products and services. Catering to the demand for added convenience in banking services are ATMs, direct deposit and banking by telephone and mail. Financial institutions are now seeing competition from a host of new non-financial institution competitors, ranging from investment firms with expanding menus of services to software manufacturers, which have sought to position themselves as primary providers of financial services via electronic access. Financial institutions may continue to hold the money, but these new non-financial institution competitors seek to control the customers.
The banking industry, reacting to this transformation of the competitive environment, has hurried to established electronic connectivity with customers -- in some cases choosing systems quickly without sufficient consideration of the strategic value or long-term vitality of the particular technology involved. Even though some of these systems seem to offer "control" of customer relationships, they leave much activity in the hands of a third party provider that is not a financial institution, and these systems actually weaken the relationship link between the financial institution and its customers.
There is a need for a system that enables financial institutions to retain control of customer relationships and customer loyalty and identification with a bank yet enables the customer to use the most advanced technology available. The present invention provides such a system as a bank-centric service platform. The banking service platform is a unique, fault-tolerant, scalable distributed computing environment that puts advanced technology directly into the control of the financial institution, with the same plug-and-play efficiency of third party non-financial institution options. With the present invention, the financial institution, and not a third party non-financial institution provider, is the central focus of the customer's relationship and the bank becomes the perceived and actual provider of financial information, products and services to the customer; and the customer's bank becomes the branded gateway to a plurality of banking and non-banking information, products and services, that, but for the gateway, would not otherwise be offered by the bank.
In present third party provider systems, the customer calls the third party to do his/her banking; and because the third party owns and manages a facility to enable the customer to obtain electronic services via the third party, the third party becomes in effect the customer's "bank." The relational affinity of the customer's actual bank with which the customer has an account fades in the customer's view as the third party service provider becomes identified as the first relationship the customer uses to initiate transactions.
The banking service platform of the present invention allows the financial institution to own and manage the system and to control and manage the flow of information between the financial institution and the customer. The relationship between the financial institution and the customer is direct and personal. The present invention also allows the financial institution to become a gateway identified with the bank name to non-banking information, products and services.
A banking service platform is provided that enables access by a customer at a remote location to financial information, products and services maintained by a bank at a central location. The banking service platform includes a central information processor at the central location of a bank, which, ordinarily, is the bank's master computer. The central information processor includes data storage files relating to categories of bank financial information, products and services and an access gateway to other providers (non-bank) of financial and non-financial information, products and services. Customer operable transceivers at remote locations send and receive communications to and from the central information processor through a client server that is operatively interconnected to communicate with the transceivers and the central information processor. The client server handles processing and transmitting communications to and from the customer operable transceivers. The client server enables a customer using the transceiver to access and control items within the categories of financial information, products and services maintained in the data storage files of the central information processor and the financial and non-financial information, products and services of other providers accessible through the gateway.

Bank-centric service platform, network and system


An electrical connection structure that is able to electrically connect wiring to a biopolymer, a production method of the electrical connection structure, and an electric wiring method which is able to perform wiring on a nanometer-scale. A first aspect of the production method of the present invention uses a carbon nanotube as an electrode, and makes the carbon nanotube contact the biopolymer. A second aspect of the production method applies electric current between the electrode and the biopolymer of the first aspect. The electrical connection structure of the present invention comprises at least the electrode formed by the carbon nanotube and the biopolymer, wherein the electrode is in contact with the biopolymer. In the electric wiring method of the present invention, the electrode formed by the carbon nanotube contacts the biopolymer to complete an electrical connection.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connection structure, a production method thereof, and an electric wiring method. More specifically, the present invention relates to an electrical connection structure using a biopolymer such as DNA, RNA, or a protein, a production method of the electrical connection structure, and an electric wiring method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Heretofore, expectations that biopolymer insulating materials such as DNA, RNA, and proteins would be used as electronic components were low.
However, due to the development of techniques for manufacturing nanometer-scale devices, the uses of such biopolymers as electronic materials for manufacturing electronic devices began to be studied. Further, the use of these biopolymers is also expected in tests and inspections which connect electrodes to the biopolymers to measure their electric properties. The biggest problem in this case is electrical connection between the biopolymers and the electrodes. In a method of producing electrodes that are used in silicon devices and the like, they are generally wired (electrically connected) by forming a pattern on a photoresist with the light exposure method or the electron beam exposure method, and then depositing metals, semiconductors or the like on the pattern. Moreover, there is a method in which a thiol group (SH group) is intentionally added to a molecule, and the molecule having the thiol group added thereto is optionally adhered onto a gold electrode.
However, in methods in which the photoresist is used, the biopolymers, such as DNA, RNA, or a protein, are chemically damaged by an organic solvent or the like used in resist development. Even if the biopolymers are simply adhered onto a metal electrode, electric conductivity varies according to the adhering state of the biopolymers. In the method in which a thiol group is used, materials are limited, and most biopolymers cannot be used.
Further, when a biopolymer such as DNA, RNA, or a protein is simply placed onto a metal (such as gold or platinum) electrode, contact resistance between the metal electrode and the biopolymer is not constant due to the effects of an oxide film on the surface of the metal. Therefore, a stable electrical connection cannot be expected, and the contact resistance value deviates by about 10% or more.
Furthermore, many of the biopolymers such as DNA, RNA, and proteins are insulating materials having a resistance of 5 MΩ·cm or more. When such biopolymers are used as electronic elements, nanometer-scale electrodes need to be formed and disposed so as to be close to the biopolymer. However, since the size of metal wiring is too large (too thick) relative to the size of the biopolymer, it has been difficult to form minute electric wiring.


The present disclosure provides cells engineered to express recombinantly manufactured ultra-long acting insulin-Fc fusion proteins for use in treating diabetes. The insulin-Fc fusion proteins comprise an insulin polypeptide linked via a peptide linker to an Fc-fragment of human origin. Exemplary ultra-long acting insulin-Fc fusion proteins, cells engineered to express the fusion proteins, polynucleotides encoding these insulin-Fc fusion proteins, and pharmaceutical formulations of exemplary insulin-Fc fusion proteins are provided, in addition to methods of use and preparation.

The following description of the background of the present technology is provided simply as an aid in understanding the present technology and is not admitted to describe or constitute prior art to the present technology.
Diabetes is a chronic condition characterized by an insulin deficiency and/or ineffective use of insulin. Diabetics that have an absolute deficiency of insulin are categorized as having type 1 or insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM). Type 1 diabetics are thought to have a genetic predisposition combined with immunologic destruction of the insulin-producing β-cells of the pancreas. In comparison, diabetics that can still produce some insulin but have a relative deficiency due to insulin resistance or other dysfunction, are classified as having type 2 or non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM). Type 2 diabetes is linked to genetic predisposition, obesity, and certain medications. Women can also develop temporary insulin resistance during pregnancy in what is called gestational diabetes. Some adults are diagnosed with latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA), a slow-progressing form of autoimmune diabetes. Similar to type 1 diabetes, in LADA the insulin-producing (3-cells of the pancreas are destroyed but at a slower rate. A small percentage of people are diagnosed with maturity onset diabetes of the young (MODY), which refers to any of several hereditary forms of diabetes mellitus caused by mutations in an autosomal dominant gene disrupting insulin production.
When a type 1 diabetes, LADA, or MODY patient's pancreas does not produce enough insulin, the patient generally exhibits an atypical glycemia phenotype marked by hyperglycemia. In these cases, the patients are treated with chronic insulin injection therapy. In type 2 and gestational diabetes, patients also often exhibit hyperglycemia as they are unable to properly utilize the insulin that is being produced by the pancreas. In these cases, the patients can be treated with oral medication with or without changes in diet and exercise; however, many subjects eventually progress to resemble a type 1 diabetes condition (inflammatory disease in pancreas with significant loss of beta cell mass) and become dependent on exogenous insulin. Left untreated, diabetes can lead to weight loss, loss of appetite, vomiting, dehydration, problems with motor function, coma, and even death.
Approximately 30 million people, or 9.4% of the United States population, have diabetes. Type 1 diabetes accounts for about 5% of all diagnosed cases of diabetes, affecting approximately 1.5 million people. Current diabetes therapies include a variety of short-acting (e.g. Humalog® (Eli Lilly, Indianapolis, Ind.) and NovoLog® (Novo Nordisk, Bagsværd, Denmark)) and long-acting insulin products (e.g. Lantus® (Sanofi, Paris, France) and Levemir® (Novo Nordisk, Bagsværd, Denmark)), which are administered via subcutaneous injection multiple times a day or through a wearable subcutaneous infusion pump. The burden of frequent injections results in a lack of treatment regimen compliance and under-dosing, leading to poor long-term health outcomes. In fact, each year over 7 million hospital discharges related to diabetes are reported among United States adults due to cardiovascular events, amputations, and ketoacidosis. Furthermore, each year over 14 million emergency department visits related to diabetes are reported among United States adults due to hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia crises among other conditions. Among U.S. adults aged 20 years or older with diagnosed diabetes, the estimated prevalence of kidney disease is over 36%. Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States with a total estimated annual cost of over $245 billion. Therefore, there is a need for cost effective and less burdensome treatment options for this disease.

Cells engineered to express ultra-long acting insulin-Fc fusion proteins


A catheter configured for performing reperfusion by alternatively occluding a vessel so as to prevent fluid flow and removing that occlusion to allow fluid flow is described. A first catheter includes an outer member and a retractable valve to allow and prevent fluid flow in the vessel. A second catheter includes a sheathed expansion member that can be deployed and recaptured to prevent and allow, respectively, fluid flow. A third catheter includes an angioplasty balloon to open a vessel occlusion, in which an occlusion balloon is used to allow and disallow fluid flow. A fourth catheter includes an expandable member for providing mechanical plunging action to urge thrombotic material to a more distal location. A fifth catheter includes an accessory catheter that can be used to perform reperfusion with another catheter. A sixth catheter includes an inner balloon within an outer balloon configured to perform reperfusion.

As a consequence of an ischemic myocardial event, blood supply distal to an arterial occlusion is significantly diminished. The resulting deprivation of oxygen places this tissue at risk of necrosis. The standard of care for ischemic events is urgent revascularization of the occluded artery, which is commonly performed by minimally invasive catheterization followed by angioplasty, in order dilate the ischemic blockage and fully restore the supply of the blood to the tissue.
However, restoration of blood to the tissue can result in a cascade of metabolic and inflammatory responses which can lead to the necrosis of potentially salvageable myocardium despite the restitution of adequate blood supply. This reperfusion injury significantly extends the size of the infarct, and leads to increased morbidity and mortality. A possible way to avoid this reperfusion injury is to control the flow of blood to the distal tissue following reperfusion, which may mitigate the metabolic and inflammatory response of ischemic issue when being reperfused. This may be accomplished by initially crossing the ischemic occlusion with a guidewire. A balloon or stent delivery system is then delivered across the occlusion the guidewire. The balloon or stent is deployed to dilate the vessel occlusion and restore the blood flow to the distal vessel. However, rather than maintaining the blood flow in a constant manner, it is contemplated that a more efficacious approach is to restore the blood in an intermittent fashion. In this way, the reperfused tissue will be oxygenated gradually, which will mitigate the deleterious effects of reperfusion. This will in turn maximize the tissue viability post-procedurally.
In addition, after deployment of a stent or balloon within the ischemic region, there may be thrombus generated, which is released into the blood stream. Generally, the thrombus will be carried to a distal region of the vasculature, but in some cases it may remain near the lesion or in a location that is proximal to a vessel bifurcation that supplies significant blood to heart tissue. When the thrombus remains in a more proximal location within the vessel, it presents an increased probabilistic risk of occluding the vessel and forming another ischemic event. This risk can be mitigated by displacing the thrombus to more and more distal regions of the vasculature, so that when it does occlude a vessel it will generally be a much smaller vessel that is less significant in terms of maintaining tissue viability.
Therefore, there exists a need for medical devices that are capable restoring blood flow after an ischemic in an intermittent and gradual fashion. In addition, there also exists a need for medical devices that are capable of forcing thrombotic particles into more distal regions of the vasculature to avoid ischemic events that compromise large areas of cardiac tissue.


This invention relates to electronic device fabrication for making devices such as semiconductor wafers and resolves the detrimental fluorine loading effect on deposition in the reaction chamber of a HDP CVD apparatus used for forming dielectric layers in high aspect ratio, narrow width recessed features with a repeating dep/etch/dep process. The detrimental fluorine loading effect in the chamber on deposition uniformity is reduced and wafers are provided having less deposition thickness variations by employing the method using a passivation treatment and precoating of the chamber before substrates are processed. In a preferred process, after each wafer of a batch is finished, the passivation steps are repeated. In a further preferred process, after all the wafers of a batch are finished, the passivation and precoat procedure is repeated. A preferred passivation gas is a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen.

This invention relates to electronic device fabrication processes. More specifically, the invention relates to resolving the detrimental fluorine loading effect on the deposition thickness drift on the device during the sequential processing of devices in the reaction chamber of a HDP CVD apparatus used for forming dielectric layers in high aspect ratio, narrow width recessed features.
It is often necessary in semiconductor processing to fill high aspect ratio gaps with insulating material. This is the case for shallow trench isolation, inter-metal dielectric layers, passivation layers, etc. As device geometries shrink and thermal budgets are reduced, void-free filling of high aspect ratio spaces (e.g., AR>3:1) becomes increasingly difficult due to limitations of existing deposition processes.
Most deposition methods deposit more material on the upper region than on the lower region of a sidewall and/or form top-hats at the entry of the gap. As a result the top part of a high aspect ratio structure sometimes closes prematurely leaving voids within the gap's lower portions. This problem is exacerbated in small features. Furthermore, as aspect ratios increase, the shape of the gap itself can contribute to the problem. High aspect ratio gaps often exhibit reentrant features, which make gap filling even more difficult. One such problematic reentrant feature is a narrowing at the top of the gap. The etched sidewalls slope inward near the top of the gap. For a given aspect ratio feature, this increases the ratio of gap volume to gap access area seen by the precursor species during deposition. Voids and seams formation is more likely under these conditions. If the top of the gap prematurely closes off, a chemical etch is required to re-open the gap before more film can be deposited in the gap.
High-density plasma chemical vapor deposition (HDP CVD) is a directional (bottom-up) CVD process that is used for high aspect ratio gap-fill. The method deposits more material at the bottom of a high aspect ratio structure than on its sidewalls. It accomplishes this by directing charged dielectric precursor species downward, to the bottom of the gap. Thus, HDP CVD is not an entirely diffusion-based (isotropic) process.
Nevertheless, some overhang or top-hat formation still results at the entry region of the gap to be filled. This results from the non-directional deposition reactions of neutral species in the plasma reactor and from sputtering/redeposition processes. The directional aspect of the deposition process produces some high momentum charged species that sputter away bottom fill. The sputtered material tends to redeposit on the sidewalls. Limitations due to overhang formation become ever more severe as the width of the gap to be filled decreases and the aspect ratio increases.
Conventional HDP CVD processes rely on plasma etch steps to remove sidewall deposits and top-hats. Typically a fluorine species, such as NF3, is used between dielectric film deposition steps to etch the film. After a layer of dielectric partially fills gaps on a substrate, the fluorine-containing plasma etches the layer to remove top-hats and open the gap for further deposition. However, these etch steps are time-consuming and expensive.
Current gap fill process uses multiple sequences of deposition and etch in a single chamber and this process methodology leaves behind residual fluorine which remains incorporated in trace amounts in the chamber, primarily the ceramic dome. These trace amounts accumulate with time and cause a detrimental fluorine loading effect resulting in a drift in the stack film thickness on the wafer in the process chamber as multiple wafers are sequentially processed. The loading effect is mainly caused by fluorine attacking the chamber environment and increases the batch thickness drift as more wafers are produced.
To improve fabrication of advanced technology devices, the art requires better dielectric deposition and etch processes that can fill high aspect ratio features of narrow width and reduce sidewall and top-hat formation without the detrimental fluorine loading effects on drift in the thickness of the deposition as the fabrication processes proceed.

H2-based plasma treatment to eliminate within-batch and batch-to-batch etch drift


A split-boost converter having a main inductor, first and second main switches and floating and fixed outputs and a method of operating the same. In one embodiment, the converter includes an auxiliary diode coupled between the main inductor and a first rail of the floating output, and an auxiliary switch coupled to a node between the main inductor and the auxiliary diode and a second rail of the floating output. The converter is operable in a first mode, when an input voltage of the converter at least equals an output voltage of the converter, in which the auxiliary switch remains open and the first and second main switches are modulated to operate the converter. The converter is further operable in a second mode, when an input voltage of the converter is less than an output voltage of the converter, in which the first and second main switches remain closed and the auxiliary switch is modulated to operate the converter.

Boost converters have been widely used in various power conversion applications employing both three-phase and single-phase AC input voltages. The conventional single-switch boost converter has become the most popular topology for single-phase power factor correction. For an RMS AC input voltage in the range of 85 volts to 265 volts, a boost technology can provide a sinusoidal input current and an output DC voltage near 400 volts. However, if the RMS AC input voltage is greater than approximately 265 volts, the DC output voltage for a conventional boost converter has to be increased.
As the DC output voltage increases, the voltage stress on the switching devices in both the boost converter and the following load converter increases. This condition requires higher blocking voltage switching devices. The cost of the higher blocking voltage switching devices is greater than the lower voltage rated switching devices. Additionally, the higher voltage rated devices exhibit higher forward conduction voltage drops and higher switching losses than the lower voltage rated devices, which makes them more energy-dissipative, and therefore less efficient.
An approach for dealing with this situation is to adopt the buck+boost topology, which allows the DC output voltage to be lower than the instantaneous AC input voltage. The DC output voltage may then be maintained at 400 volts or less even though the peak AC voltage is greater. There are several disadvantages to the buck+boost converter, however. First, a large pulsating input current requires a large electromagnetic interference (EMI) filter to counteract its negative effects. Also, the buck switch is subjected to both high voltage and high current stresses. Finally, a large number of silicon devices are typically required to process the power.
For three-phase rectification, the split-boost converter is a very efficient topology that allows the DC output voltage to be less than the peak AC input voltage. The split-boost converter provides two equal output voltages and requires two separate loads. A basic requirement of this topology is that the instantaneous rectified AC input voltage must be in a range that is greater than the individual DC output voltages but less than twice the individual DC output voltages for the converter to function properly. As a result, the conventional split-boost topology may not be used in single-phase, high power factor AC input voltage applications.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is a way to employ the split-boost topology for AC input voltages that are less than the individual DC output voltage.

Dual mode split-boost converter and method of operation thereof


Electric discharge gas is made into auxiliary plasma in an electron generating chamber and electrons in the generated auxiliary plasma are introduced into an ion generating chamber. Electrons collide with molecules of material gas in the ion generating chamber to generate primary plasma. Ions in the ion generating chamber are drawn out of the primary plasma through an opening of the ion generating chamber. A magnetic field is formed by electromagnets in order to bring the plasma in the ion generating chamber into a concentrated state. A control unit is provided to store data representing optimum magnetic field intensities for ions of different types involved. The control unit so controls current applied by the power supply for the electromagnets as to produce an optimum magnetic field intensity for the type of ions to be drawn.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a system for implanting ions into an object such as a semiconductor wafer.
2. Description of the Related Art
An ion implantation system is used to implant ions as impurities into semiconductor wafers in the process of manufacturing semiconductor devices. In such an ion implantation system, ions drawn out of an ion source unit are made to pass through a mass analyzing magnet and an acceleration tube and then implanted into a semiconductor wafer while they are scanning in X- and Y-directions through an electrostatic deflector plate to produce a given pattern. As the ion source unit of the system, a Freeman type ion source unit where source gas is turned into plasma and ions are drawn out of the plasma by means of an ion extraction electrode is popularly used.
An ion source unit of the above described type comprises an arc chamber where a magnetic field is produced to "tighten" the swell of the plasma in it so that an intense ion beam may be drawn. The intensity of magnetic field in the unit is kept constant (and not greater than 150 to 200 Gauss) regardless of the type of ions involved. Because, if the magnetic field is made too intense for the swell of the plasma to be tightened, the swell is away from the ion extraction slit of the unit and consequently the efficiency of the ion extraction operation is lowered. It is obviously conceivable, however, that keeping the intensity of magnetic field constant in the unit may be disadvantageous in some cases depending on the type of ions involved and reduce the efficiency of the ion extraction operation.

Ion implantation system using optimum magnetic field for concentrating ions


A high-side driving circuit is provided, where Q terminal and Q terminal of the latch circuit respectively feed back to the first switch and the second switch, which may control asymmetric impedance, such that the high-side driving circuit can prevent noise.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a circuit. More particularly, the present invention relates to a high-side driver.
2. Description of Related Art
Please refer to FIG. 1. FIG. 1 is a circuit diagram of a conventional high-side driver. In FIG. 1, the signal generator 110 may control the latch is circuit 150 to drive the high-side driver 160.
For a more complete understanding of the conventional high-side driver, please refer to FIG. 1 and FIG. 2A. FIG. 2A is a timing diagram showing the wave shape of the respective signals of the conventional high-side driver of FIG. 1. If the first pulse output terminal CS of the signal generator 110 outputs a first pulse signal to turn on the first transistor 130. Then, the electric potential at the node DR1 is dropped so the first output terminal Q outputs a high level electric potential to turn on the high-side transistor 260. On the other hand, if the second pulse output terminal CR of the signal generator 110 outputs a second pulse signal to turn on the first transistor 130, then the electric potential at the node DR2 is dropped so that the first output terminal Q outputs a low level electric potential to cut off the high-side transistor 260.
However, please refer to FIG. 2B. FIG. 2B is another timing diagram showing the wave shape of the respective signals of the conventional high-side driver of FIG. 1. If the electric potential applied by the power supply VDD is floating, noise may be generated at the nodes DR1, DR2, so that the high/low level electric potential outputted by the latch circuit 150 is wrong.
For the foregoing reasons, there is a need for a noise immune high-side driver.


A sensor circuit and method for detecting the presence of a substance having a flow that can be turned on and off, such as ink in an ink ejecting print head, has means for turning on and off the flow of the substance at a predetermined frequency. An optical sensor has a light path that is at least partially interrupted by the substance when the flow is turned on. The optical sensor is biased to operate within a range in which the sensor produces an output, even though the light path is only partially interrupted by the substance. An integrator integrates the output of the sensor, and a high gain amplifier amplifies the integrated signal to provide a sensor circuit output signal. When the substance at least partially interrupts the light path, the integrated output signal indicates its presence. The circuit is preferably used to control a heater of a thermal ink ejecting print head by adjusting the power to the heater to assure its operation with a power applied above the power threshold at which ink ejection begins.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to improvements in methods, circuits, and apparatuses for optically detecting the presence of a flowable substance, such as ink ejected from a thermal print head or the like, and, more particularly, to such improvements and methods that do not require absolute light levels to enable detection of such substances.
2. Relevant Background
It is often desired to detect the presence of a flowable substance in a particular region, for instance, in the operation of thermal ink ejecting print heads that may be associated, for example, with printers for use in conjunction with computers or other systems. Typically, such thermal ink ejecting print heads have a plurality of apertures from which the ink is ejected after being heated by one or more heating elements within the print head. One mechanism that is frequently employed uses a heater to which ink is delivered by capillary action of an ink delivery tube. As an ink drop comes into proximity with the heater, the ink is partially vaporized into an expanding steam component that explosively expels the remaining portion of the ink drop from the aperture of the print head. The capillary action of the delivery tube brings additional volumes of ink to form additional ink drops for successive expulsion from the aperture of the print head. Thus, although the "jet" of ink being expelled from the print head appears to be a continuous stream of fluid, in reality, the stream is a plurality of successive explosively ejected ink drops from the aperture that is associated with the heating element as ink is delivered drop-by-drop from the capillary tube.
The frequency at which the drops are produced is dependent upon a number of factors, including the rate at which the capillary action can deliver ink to the heater, the rate at which the heater can be energized, the physical dimensions of the apertures and chambers in which the ink is partially converted to steam, and the like. In a typical system, for example, the ink drop ejection rate is between about 3-5 kHz.
In the heating mechanism associated with the ink drop expulsion, if the power to the heating element is insufficient to produce the steam pressure necessary for the expulsion of the ink drop, no ink will be expelled from the print head. It has been found, in fact, that the power threshold for enabling ink ejection is quite sharp. On the other hand, if an excessive amount of power is applied to the heater, portion of the ink drop may be ashed. This unnecessary ashing may deposit on the heater and other print head parts, ultimately resulting in degraded operation, and in many cases, complete failure of the print head.
At various times, for example upon completion of the manufacture of the printer in which the print head is included, or, ideally, upon individual power up events in which the printer is used, the power level applied to the heaters of the print head may be adjusted to insure that it is above the ink producing threshold, but below the level that produces undesired ink disintegration. Since many manufacturing tolerances and part variations exist, the optimum power ranges may vary significantly from printer to printer. However, heretofore, the methods and circuitry that have been proposed to assure proper power level determination are relatively complicated and expensive to implement.
For example, one of the problems that exists in determining whether the power level applied to the heater is above the threshold required to produce ink ejection is in the detection of the ink that actually has been ejected from the print head. More specifically, the ink that is ejected does not necessarily completely block an optical path that otherwise could be monitored with inexpensive optical sensors or the like. The ink volume, in fact, may result only in a partial obstruction of the optical path, resulting in risk of non-detection of the presence of the ink and overpowering of the heaters.

Sensor circuit and method for detecting the presence of a substance such as ink ejected from a thermal ink ejecting print head, or the like


A tape library comprises: a plurality of tape media; a plurality of slots in which the plurality of tape media are respectively stored; a drive in which a tape medium extracted from any of the plurality of slots is set and which performs tape reading or writing in respect of this tape medium; and a controller by which a tape medium is extracted from a designated slot of these plurality of slots and set in the drive. The host computer comprises: a plurality of virtual computers; a first storage region in which is stored slot allocation information expressing which slot is allocated to which virtual computer; and an access control unit that specifies the slot allocated to a first virtual computer, of the plurality of the virtual computers, from the slot allocation information, and restricts access from the first virtual computer to the tape medium in the specified slot.

The present invention relates to technology for controlling access to a storage device.
In recent years, for example, storage consolidation has become common, in which storage which used to be provided in dispersed in fashion for each server is concentrated onto a storage system in a single location. Furthermore, configurations have become common in which a file system for providing a file access service utilizing a file transfer protocol such as NFS (Network File System) or CIFS (Common Interface File System) is constructed by mounting a file server in the storage system. In one form of storage consolidation, the Systems Management Department, that provides services such as configuration, application and maintenance in regard to storage in an enterprise, may for example provide for each department a virtual file server by logical division of a single file server.
For data protection reasons, it becomes necessary to provide access control. For example, a virtual file server can access only permitted storage devices. The access control is disclosed in for example Laid-open Japanese Patent Application No. 2004-206221 and Laid-open Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-276406.
In Laid-open Japanese Patent Application No. 2004-206221, a technique for preventing referencing or alteration from other computers is described, in which a partition comprising a tape drive and a plurality of tape slots is created in a tape library, and the tape drive and slot that a host computer can access are restricted by allocating a partition to each host computer.
In Laid-open Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-276406, a technique is disclosed according to which an access allowability table and related table are created and held, and a decision is reached as to whether or not access to a logical volume (LU) is allowed, using the S_ID of an inquiry request from the host computer and these tables. The access allowability table contains, in associated fashion, the N_Port_Name of the host computer or Node_Name and LU in the storage subsystem. The related table relates the S_ID and LU that are allocated when the host computer logs in.

Method and system for controlling access to tape media from a plurality of virtual computers


The invention features a nontoxigenic genetically stable mutant strain of V. cholerae which lacks any functional attRS1 sequences is useful as a live, oral vaccine for inducing immunological protection against cholera and a method for making same. The invention also features a killed, oral cholera vaccine comprising at least a first and a second V. cholerae strain, wherein at least one of the strains is a different serotype, and the vaccine also contains cholera toxin B subunit, produced by at least one of the serotypes.

The field of invention is Vibrio cholerae vaccines. After more than 100 years of research on cholera, there remains a need for an effective cholera vaccine. There have been six pandemics of this disease caused by strains of V. cholera belonging to the "Classical" biotype. The etiological agents of the current (seventh) pandemic belong to the "El Tor" biotype (Finkelstein, Crit. Rev. Microbiol 2:553-623, 1973, Wachsmuth et al., The Lancet 337:1097-1098, 1991). Recently the seventh pandemic has extended to a new locale, that of South America. Beginning in January of 1991, an epidemic of cholera resulted in greater than 250,000 cases and over 2,000 deaths in Peru, Ecuador, Columbia, and Chile. Before this epidemic it was estimated that over 200,000 cases of cholera occurred per year mainly in India, Bangladesh, Africa and Western Asia (Tacket et al., Cholera Vaccines. In Vaccines: New Approaches to Immunological Problems, Ellis, R. W., editor, Butterworth-Heinemann, Boston, 1992).
In November of 1992, an antigenically distinct, non-01 form of V. cholerae emerged in India and Bangladesh and within eight months caused an estimated 500,000 cases and 6,000 deaths. The pandemic potential of this new strain, designated serogroup 0139 synonym "Bengal", seems assured and is a new cause of concern throughout the developing world. These recent experiences underline the need for effective cholera vaccines against disease due to both El Tor 01 and Bengal 0139 serotypes of V. cholerae.
Because natural infection by and recovery from cholera induces immunity lasting at least 3 years (Tacket et al., Supra; Levine et al., J. Infect. Dis. 143:818-820, 1981; Cash et al., J. Infect. Dis. 130:325-333, 1974), much effort has been made to produce live, attenuated cholera vaccines that when administered orally would mimic the disease in its immunization properties but would not cause adverse symptoms or reactions in the immunized individual (i.e., display low reactogenicity). Vaccines of this type involve deletion mutations that inactivate the gene encoding the A subunit of cholera toxin, a protein which is responsible for most of the diarrhea seen in this disease (Mekalanos et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 79:151-155, 1982; Mekalanos et al., Nature 306:551-557, 1983; Kaper et al., Nature 308:655-658, 1984; Kaper et al., Biotechnology 2:345, 1984; Pierce et al., Infect. Immun. 55:477-481, 1987; Taylor et al., Vaccine 6:151-154, 1988; Levine et al., Infn. Immun. 56:161-167, 1988; Herrington et al. J. Exper. Med. 168:1487-1492, 1988; Levine et al., Lancet ii:467-470, 1988; Kaper et al., Res. Microbiol. 141:901-906, 1990; Pearson et al., Res. Microbiol. 141:893-899, 1990). See also Mekalanos, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,098,998 and 4,882,278, and Kaper et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,935,364, hereby incorporated by reference. While both oral, killed whole cell vaccines and several live, attenuated cholera vaccine have been developed, the most promising of these provide little protection against the El Tor biotype of V. cholerae and probably no protection against the 0139 serotype. The major issues associated with cholera vaccines are safety, stability and their degree of antigenicity.
With regard to the toxin genes of V. cholerae, the genetic diversity among toxigenic and non-toxigenic strains has been examined by Chen et al. (1991, Epidemiol. Infect. 107:225). Mekalanos (1983, Cell 35:253) reports on the duplication and amplification of V. cholerae toxin genes, and Miller et al. (1984, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 81:3471) discusses transcriptional regulation of the toxin genes. Other V. cholerae genes whose products may play a role in the pathogenicity of this organism include the toxin-coregulated pilus genes (Shaw et al., 1990, Infect. Immun. 58:3042; Sharma et al., 1989, Vaccine, 7:451; Sun et al., 1990, J. Infect. Dis. 161:1231; Hall et al., 1991, Infect. Immun. 59:2508; Taylor et al., 1987, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 84:2833), and the gene encoding the intestinal colonalization factor (Taylor et al., 1988, Vaccine 6:151).

Deletion mutants of cholera vaccines expressing heterologous antigens

President and Fellows of Harvard College


Disclosed is a mobile stage including a forestage with concealed footlights, a roof connected to the forestage by a telescopic frame assembly, a sky drop mounted on the telescopic frame assembly and disposed between the roof and the forestage, a visual display terminal mounted on the forestage at the front, stage ighting fixtures mounted on the roof and the sky drop, and a distributing box mounted on the forestage at the back for power supply control.

The present invention relates to a stage, and relates more particularly to a mobile stage which can be conveniently dismantled for moving from place to place and then re-assembled at a desired location.
In a restaurant, night club, or entertainment center, there may be provided a small stage for people to perform different plays. Stage lighting fixtures and other audio and video equipment may also be installed in the stage to produce sound and lighting effects. A stage of this type is specifically designed and then constructed at the selected location. Therefore, a stage of this type is not detachable and can not be moved once it was constructed. Because it is specifically designed, its construction cost is expensive. Further, a stage of this type is difficult to maintain, and it requires much time to construct. When various electrical devices are to be installed, the electric wiring is also difficult to arrange.


A spindle motor of small size, thin type, high reliability, and high performance suited to an information recording and reproducing apparatus is presented. Specifically, a rotary disk is composed by integrally forming a disk board, and a rotary shaft of spindle motor, and a bearing is composed by forming dynamic pressure generating grooves in the rotary shaft of the rotary disk. As a result, small size and thin structure are realized, surface deflection of the disk during rotation of the spindle motor, and its axial center deflection are substantially decreased, and moreover the recording density is enhanced, the number of constituent parts is curtailed, and the cost is saved.

Various information appliances are used recently, and there is a mounting need for increasing the memory capacity in magnetic disk apparatuses, and high density recording is demanded more and more. In this trend, high reliability is needed together with high precision of rotation of disk and the bearing device for spindle motor of a magnetic disk apparatus is desired to be smaller in rotation deflection of shaft or surface deflection of disk in order to enhance the recording density. To meet such demands, instead of ball bearings, dynamic pressure fluid bearings of small vibrations have come to be used widely in these apparatuses.
A conventional spindle motor, an information recording and reproducing apparatus having such spindle motor, and a manufacturing method of spindle motor are explained below by referring to the accompanying drawings.
FIG. 38 and FIG. 39 are drawings explaining the principal mechanical parts of a spindle motor using a dynamic pressure fluid bearing widely used in information appliances including the apparatus for recording and reproducing information by making use of magnetism, and the principal mechanical parts of the information recording and reproducing apparatus using such spindle motor, and more specifically FIG. 38 is a schematic sectional view of principal structure of information recording and reproducing apparatus having spindle motor, and FIG. 39 is a schematic sectional view partially magnifying the area near the lubricant sump in the spindle motor using a dynamic pressure fluid bearing. In FIG. 38 and FIG. 39, components corresponding to the elements in FIG. 1A relating to a first exemplary embodiment of the invention described later are identified with same reference numerals as in FIG. 1A.
In FIG. 38, a rotating element 380 is composed of a columnar rotary shaft 382 which is a shaft member having a rotor hub 381 fixed as a rotating member, a rotor yoke 11 integrally coupled to the rotor hub 381, and a rotary magnet 12 magnetized in plural poles being affixed to the rotor yoke 11. On the other hand, a stator 16 is composed of an iron core 14 fixed on a base 10 and disposed oppositely to the inner circumference of the rotary magnet 12, and a coil 15 wound around the iron core 14. A bearing sleeve 7 which is a fixed side bearing on which the columnar rotary shaft 382 as a shaft member is rotatably fitted about the rotation center axis 1 is fixed to the base 10. Further, at the lower end of the bearing sleeve 7, there is a thrust plate 8a fixed to a thrust support plate 8, and the spherical lower end 832a of the rotary shaft 382 is supported in the thrust direction.
In the inner circumference of the bearing sleeve 7, a lubricant sump 383 of an annular recess is disposed closely to the upper opening end. The portion from the upper end of the lubricant sump 383 to the opening end of the bearing sleeve 7 forms a lubricant holding area (an excess oil region) 384 which is a cylindrical fluid holding portion of a specified length along the outer circumference of the rotary shaft 382.
The bearing gap between the rotary shaft 382 and bearing sleeve 7 is filled with a dynamic pressure lubricant 21 for generating a dynamic pressure, and on the surface of the thrust plate 8a facing the lower end 382a of the rotary shaft 382, a shallow groove is formed for obtaining a support force in the thrust direction by generating a dynamic pressure in the lubricant. On the outer circumference of the rotary shaft 382, first and second radial dynamic pressure generating grooves 382b, 382c of herringbone shape are formed upward from the lower end, having widths L1 and L2 in the axial direction, with the central distance between the widths L1 and L2 being L.
When the coil 15 of the stator 16 is excited by a driving current supplied through a drive and control circuit (not shown) of the information recording and reproducing apparatus, the rotary magnet 12 rotates together with the rotary shaft 382, thereby composing a spindle motor.
A disk board 385 on which a recording medium layer is formed is placed on the flange 381a of the rotor hub 381 of the spindle motor, and is pressed and fixed to the flange 381a of the rotor hub 381 by other end of a pressure spring 386 of which one end is fixed in a groove formed in the rotary shaft 382. By integrally fixing the disk board 385 together with the rotating element 380 comprising the rotor hub 381 and rotary magnet 12, the disk board 385 is rotated along with rotation of the spindle motor, and by recording and reproducing in the disk board 385 by a known method, by using a magnetic head (not shown) mounted on a slider, or an optical pickup (not shown) having an objective lens for focusing the light, an information recording and reproducing apparatus is composed.
When the rotary shaft 382 is rotated by the spindle motor having such dynamic pressure fluid bearing, the dynamic pressure lubricant 21 in the bearing gap is sucked into the center of the radial dynamic pressure generating grooves 382b, 382c, and a dynamic pressure for obtaining a supporting force in the radial direction is generated. By such dynamic pressure fluid bearing, the rotary shaft 382 during rotation is kept free from contact with the inner circumference of the bearing sleeve 7. Since the rotary shaft 382 rotates without contacting with the bearing sleeve 7, rotation deflection of shaft or surface deflection of disk board 385 can be decreased, and the reliability of the information recording and reproducing apparatus can be enhanced together with the rotation precision of the disk board.
In the spindle motor having such dynamic pressure fluid bearing, the dynamic pressure lubricant 21 may flow out from the opening in the bearing sleeve 7 during rotation, or the dynamic pressure lubricant 21 may overflow in the assembling process, or the dynamic pressure lubricant 21 may ooze out due to thermal expansion of the dynamic pressure lubricant 21 by temperature rise. To avoid such troubles of flowing-out or oozing-out of the dynamic pressure lubricant 21, and also to prevent overflow of dynamic pressure lubricant 21 due to lack of capacity of the lubricant sump 383, a technology is proposed, for example, in Japanese Patent Publication No. JP2000-121986. According to this proposal, as shown in FIG. 39, a lubricant sump 383 of annular groove is provided in the inner circumference of the bearing sleeve 7, and the upward groove end forming the lubricant sump 383, that is, the upper end 383a of the end face at the opening end side of the bearing sleeve 7 is inclined in a reverse taper. In this proposed method, the opening width in the axial direction of the lubricant sump 383 is smaller than the width of the bottom of the lubricant sump 383, and the length in the axial direction of the lubricant holding part (excess oil region) 384 is substantially increased by the corresponding portion. That is, the upper end 383a of the lubricant sump 383 is formed in a reverse taper to increase the inner volume of the lubricant sump 383 and the lubricant holding portion (excess oil region) 384 is extended, and thereby it is intended to avoid troubles of flowing-out or oozing-out of the dynamic pressure lubricant 21.
The grooves for generating the dynamic pressure of the spindle motor having such dynamic pressure fluid bearing can be formed by plastic processing method such as etching, shot blasting, shot peening, or ball rolling. For example, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. JP7-164251, using a downsized rolling die device, an inexpensive technology for processing grooves for generating dynamic pressure in the rotary shaft is proposed, in which the portion not forming dynamic pressure generating grooves is preliminarily formed by cutting process or the like, and then herringbone grooves for generating dynamic pressure are formed by rolling in the rotary shaft.
However, in the conventional configuration of the information recording and reproducing apparatus having the spindle motor or the disk board 385 mounted on the flange 381a of the rotor hub 381 of the spindle motor, the rotor hub 381 is fixed to the rotary shaft 382, and further the disk board 385 is held in the flange 381a of the rotor hub 381, and therefore it is not only hard to mount the flange 381a on the rotary shaft 382 by precisely crossing the disk mounting face of the flange 381a or the recording face of the disk board 385 orthogonally to the rotation center axis 1 of the rotary shaft 382, but also hard to match the center of the flange 381a or the disk board 385 precisely with the rotation center axis 1.
Due to such deviation in angle formed between the disk mounting face of the flange 381a or the recording face of the disk board 385 and the axial center of the rotary shaft 382, when the disk board 385 is rotated, the recording face rotates with a certain inclination, and the position of the recording face of the disk board 385 fluctuates, that is, a phenomenon of surface deflection occurs. Also due to deviation in position of the center of the flange 381a or disk board 385 from the rotation center axis, when the disk board 385 is rotated, the position fluctuates in a direction parallel to this surface, that is, an axial center deflection occurs.
Yet, if the temperature is raised owing to the environments of use of the information recording and reproducing apparatus or temperature rise inside the apparatus, the oil viscosity of the dynamic pressure lubricant 21 drops, and the bearing rigidity of the radial bearing declines, and therefore at the time of recording or reproducing of the apparatus, the surface deflection of the disk board increases.
In actual use, the surface deflection and axial center deflection appear in a combined form, and the recording density of the disk board 385 must be determined by including a tolerance in consideration of such fluctuations, and hence there was a limit in enhancing the recording density.
To suppress the surface deflection and axial center deflection of the disk board 385 during rotation, it is required to enhance the processing precision and assembling precision of these constituent members, and it means that increase in the apparatus cost is inevitable. It further requires a tightening part for fixing the disk board 385 to the flange 381a of the rotor hub 381, which also causes to increase the cost.
To maintain a high precision of rotation of the disk, it is required to extend the shaft diameter and shaft length of the rotary shaft for composing the radial bearing and thrust bearing, and the space occupied by the rotary shaft increases, and it is hard to reduce in size and thickness. Further, a space for tightening the disk board 385 to the flange 381a of the rotor hub 381 is required in the upper part of the disk board 385, which makes it hard to reduce in thickness, too.
It is also necessary to enhance the moment axial rigidity to the disturbance moment applied on the rotating element 380, and the following four methods are generally known as the means for enhancing the moment axial rigidity.
(1) To enhance the bearing rigidity to the side pressure in the radial bearing.
(2) To widen the gap L between the first and second radial dynamic pressure generating grooves 382b, 382c of the radial bearing.
(3) To suppress lift in the thrust bearing by increasing the magnetic attraction applied to the thrust bearing.
(4) To raise the oil viscosity.
These methods, however, have own problems to be solved as discussed below.
(1) To enhance the bearing rigidity to the side pressure in the radial bearing, the gap in the radial bearing is narrowed, or the widths L1 and L2 in the axial direction of the first and second radial dynamic pressure generating grooves 382b, 382c are increased. But to narrow the gap of the radial bearing, it is required to process the radial bearing parts at very high precision, and there is a limit in processing precision of parts. Therefore, the gap in the radial bearing cannot be narrowed. Or if the widths L1 and L2 in the axial direction are increased, the spindle motor cannot be designed in a reduced thickness.
(2) To design a thin spindle motor, it is not allowed to widen the gap L of the first and second radial dynamic pressure generating grooves 382b, 382c of the radial bearing.
(3) Since the facing area of the thrust bearing is small, the thrust proof load is small, and metal contact may occur when the oil viscosity is lowered at high temperature, in particular.
(4) When the oil viscosity is raised, the bearing loss increases extremely in low temperature region.
In the conventional configuration of the spindle motor in the information recording and reproducing apparatus having a lubricant sump of a wedge ring form in the bearing sleeve shown in FIG. 38, it is hard to observe the oil distribution state of the dynamic pressure lubricant, and it is possible that an excessive oil may be supplied from the bearing sleeve open side end as the dynamic pressure lubricant 21 flows over the lubricant sump 383 as shown in FIG. 39. In particular, oil feed amount control is more difficult in a smaller information recording and reproducing apparatus. As indicated by arrow in FIG. 40, an excessive lubricant 401 oozes out from the bearing sleeve 7, or oil drops of the excessive lubricant 401 oozing out are provided with a centrifugal force by rotation of the rotary disk, and splash out of the motor to stick to the rotary disk surface, and the recorded data may be damaged, and hence there was a problem in reliability.
Dynamic pressure generating grooves may be processed, as mentioned above, by etching, shot blasting, shot peening, or ball rolling, but if the entire sleeve is made of a hard material, the grooves for generating dynamic pressure must be formed by etching or shot blasting process, and the processing cost is high. On the other hand, when the entire sleeve is made of a soft material, the grooves for generating dynamic pressure can be processed easily, and ball rolling or other plastic processing of low processing cost may be easily applied. However, when deburring the inner circumference or correcting the coaxiality of inside diameter and outside diameter in the finishing process after ball rolling, the outer circumference may be ruined, and the inner circumference cannot be processed on the basis of the outside diameter, and hence the coaxiality of inside and outside diameters cannot be enhanced. Or when forming the grooves for generating dynamic pressure in the inner circumference of the bearing sleeve to compose the radial bearing, a bearing sleeve having dynamic pressure generating grooves formed at high precision is required, and the cost becomes higher.
In particular, when the rotary shaft is not a simple columnar form, but is integrated with a rotor hub for fixing the disk board, a special holding tool is needed for forming and processing the grooves for generating dynamic pressure in the rotary shaft, and the processing device becomes larger and complicated, and the processing cost is raised.

Spindle motor, information recording and reproducing apparatus having a spindle motor, and manufacturing method of spindle motor

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.


A power adapter and a terminal are provided. The power adapter includes a power conversion component and a charging interface, the charging interface including a power line; the power conversion component is configured to form a charging loop with a terminal via the power line, for charging a battery of the terminal. The power adapter further includes a communication component, the charging interface further comprises a data line; during a coupling of the power adapter to the terminal, the communication component is configured to perform a bidirectional communication with the terminal via the data line.

Currently, a smart phone is becoming increasingly popular for a consumer. However, because of large power consumption, the smart phone usually needs to be charged frequently. As the battery capacity of the smart phone is becoming larger, the charging time is becoming longer, such that how to realize a quick charging is pending to be solved.
An objective of the quick charging may be realized by increasing output current of a power adapter, however, when performing a quick charging on the battery in a manner of increasing the output current, a phenomena such as over-temperature, overvoltage, overcurrent and an interface burnout usually occurs in the power adapter or the smart phone, such that a damage is caused on the power adapter or the smart phone.
In order to solve the problem, a communication mechanism may be introduced between the power adapter and the terminal, such that indexes or data may be interacted in time in a whole charging process, and a charging state may be monitored and controlled in real time. The Apple Inc. proposes a mechanism for maintaining a communication between a power adapter and an electronic device in a charging process in an application with a publication number CN 102769312A. However, in the above-described application, a time division multiplexing is applied on a power line during charging and data communication, such that a charging efficiency will be affected definitely. Further, in order to communicate during charging in a time division multiplexing manner, it is required to add an inductive element to isolate a data signal and a power channel, which leads to a great wastage and a severe heating phenomenon of an isolation element.

GUANG DONG OPPO MOBILE TELECOMMUNICATIONS CORP., LTD.


A data handling system is provided in which a circular queue formed in paged memory is used to buffer the transfer of data items between a producer entity and a consumer entity. The producer entity maintains a tail pointer into the queue to indicate the storage location next to be written to; similarly, the consumer entity maintains a head pointer to indicate the storage location next to be read. Since the head and tail pointers may point to different memory pages and these may not have been assigned in a contiguous block to the circular queue, the derivation of queue status information using the head and tail pointers is complex. To simplify this task, the producer and consumer entities maintain producer and consumer indexes for the next write and read positions based on a logical view of the queue as a circular continuum of storage locations.

It is well known to use a circular queue to buffer the transfer of data items between producer and consumer entities. FIG. 1 of the accompanying drawings is a diagram illustrating such an arrangement in the case where the circular queue 10 comprises N data-item storage locations formed in a continuous block of memory 11 (in FIG. 1, N=7). Storage locations holding data items are shown hatched whilst empty ones have been left blank; this convention is used throughout the present specification. A producer entity 12 wishing to pass a data item to a consumer entity 13 does so by writing the data item into a storage location of the circular queue 10 pointed to by a current write position pointer (the "tail" pointer). The tail pointer is maintained by the producer entity 12, being updated each time a data item is written to the queue 10. The consumer entity 13 reads a data item from the queue 10 when it is ready to do so, the data item being read from a storage location pointed to by a current read pointer (the "head" pointer). The head pointer is maintained by the consumer entity 13, being updated each time a data item is read from to the queue 10.
As used in the present specification, the term "storage location" means an area of memory sized to hold a data item; this may correspond to one addressable memory location or to a plurality of addressable memory locations.
The updating of the head and tail pointers involves incrementing them by an amount corresponding to the number of addressable memory locations occupied by a data item, each pointer being reset to the base address in memory of the circular queue each time the high end of the queue is reached.
In the FIG. 1 arrangement for which the queue storage locations form a continuum in the same memory block, it is a relatively simple matter to determine the status of the queue (that is, how full the queue is) as this can be done by subtracting the head pointer from the tail pointer, modulo queue address range.
The above-described arrangement has limitations in practice because it relies on the storage locations being contiguous in memory. Most computer systems nowadays use a paged memory arrangement in which memory is organised into blocks of contiguous memory known as pages (for example, of 4 kbytes in size). When such a system allocates multiple memory pages to meet a need for a large amount of memory, there is generally no guarantee that the allocated pages will be contiguous. As a result, the simple circular queue arrangement of FIG. 1 can only be used for small queues that will fit into a single memory page; the FIG. 1 arrangement cannot be used for larger queues requiring multiple memory pages. Where such a larger queue is required, then appropriate measures must be taken to link the segments of the queue appearing in different memory pages. FIG. 2 of the accompanying drawings illustrates such a circular queue 10 having segments 20 in three separate memory pages.
As is shown in FIG. 2, each queue segment 20 ends with a link entry 21 that is stored in a location in the memory page concerned immediately following the last data-item storage location. This link entry 21 contains an address pointer pointing to the address in memory of the first storage location of the next queue segment 20.
Each time the producer or consumer entity encounters a link entry 21 it updates the tail or head pointer (as appropriate) to the address pointed to in the link entry. Detection of the link entry can be effected by using a special flag stored in each segment location to indicate whether or not the location holds the link entry. Alternatively, if the producer/consumer entity knows how many data-items storage locations there are in a queue segment 20, it can keep a count of how many storage locations remain to be accessed (written to/read from), and then when this count reaches zero, the entity will know that the next location holds the link entry.
Determining queue status for the FIG. 2 queue presents more difficulties than for the case where the queue is all formed in a single memory page. If only queue full or queue empty status is needed, then it is possible to do this simply by comparing head or tail addresses where full and empty are defined as being when the pointers both point to the same location (as will be described later, this is generally not desirable as
it is then not possible to tell from the pointers themselves whether the queue is full whether it is empty when the pointers are equal). However, checking for any other queue condition (such as nearly empty or nearly full) immediately runs into the problem that the head and tail pointers may point to locations on different, noncontiguous, memory pages. In this case, a very careful accounting must be made of the address ranges of the queue segments if the head and tail pointers are to serve to provide useful queue status information and this accounting will require several memory accesses.
It is an object of the present invention to facilitate derivation of queue status information where circular queues are formed across pages boundaries in paged memory.

Data handling system with circular queue formed in paged memory


A cryptographic device comprises a processor coupled to a memory and is configured to maintain an event counter characterizing a number of successful administrative accesses to the cryptographic device. The cryptographic device is further configured to receive an event-based one-time passcode for a given administrative access attempt, to compare the received event-based one-time passcode to an expected event-based one-time passcode determined as a function of a current value of the event counter, and to grant or deny the given administrative access attempt based at least in part on a result of the comparing. The cryptographic device may store an administrative seed value, with the expected event-based one-time passcode being determined as a function of the administrative seed value and the current value of the event counter. The cryptographic device illustratively comprises a smartcard, a hardware or software authentication token, an Internet-of-Things (IoT) device, or other type of processor-based device having an administrative access interface.

Cryptographic devices such as smartcards are often configured to permit controlled access by an authenticated administrator. Such administrative access to a cryptographic device in conventional practice typically requires entry of a predetermined static access code that is stored in the cryptographic device in conjunction with its manufacture. More particularly, presentation of the correct predetermined static access code to an administrative interface of the cryptographic device serves to "unlock" the device so as to thereby permit an administrator to alter sensitive device-specific authentication information, such as a personal identification number (PIN) of a user of the cryptographic device. The static access code in some arrangements of this type is also referred to as a PIN Unlock Key (PUK). The same static PUK value is typically utilized throughout the lifetime of the cryptographic device.

Cryptographic device with administrative access interface utilizing event-based one-time passcodes


A file folder includes a base plate and a clamping member. The base plate has three folding lines defined in parallel in one of two sides thereof so as to define a first, a second, and a third part, wherein an opening is defined through the first and the second part. The third part is folded downwardly along the third folding line and has a tongue extending foldably upward from a free edge thereof. A plurality of corrugated units are formed to integrally connect a root portion of the tongue and the third part. The clamping member has a lower portion thereof attached to an underside of the base plate and a upper potion thereof inserted into the opening. The upper portion of the clamping member has an engaging member formed by reversely folding a free edge thereof so as to engage with the tongue of the base plate such that a pile of document is able to be clamped between the third part and the base plate.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a file folder and, more particularly, to an improved file folder having an enforcement structure to be engaged with a clamping member.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
FIGS. 1 to 3 show a conventional file folder including a plate 10 and a clamping member 20. The plate 10 has a first folding line 101, a second folding line 102 and a third folding line 103 defined in a side thereof, the three folding lines 101, 102 and 103 are parallel with each other. A first part 104 is defined between the first and the second folding lines 101, 102, a second part 105 defined between the second and the third folding line 102, 103, and a third part 106 extending from the third folding line 103. The third part 106 has a tongue 107 extending therefrom so that a fourth folding line 108 is defined between the third part 106 and the tongue 107. An opening 13 is defined through the first and the second part 104, 105. The clamping member 20 includes a lower portion 201 and an upper portion 202 with a connecting portion 203 connected therebetween, wherein the upper portion 202 has an engaging member 204 formed by reversely folding a distal edge thereof. The lower portion 201 of the clamping member 20 is attached to an underside of the plate 10 and the upper portion 202 is inserted through the opening 13 and pressed on the third part 106. The tongue 107 is then folded to press on the engaging member 204. The clamping member 20 and the plate 10 are materially made so that a pile of document 11 can be securely clamped between the plate 10 and the third part 106. However, the tongue 107 is simple a thin plate and bears a large torque force when the pile of document to be clamped has a certain thickness so that a fatigue of the tongue 107 will be found within a short period of time.
The present invention intends to provide an improved file folder having an enforcement structure to mitigate and/or obviate the above-mentioned problems.


The present invention provides an image processing apparatus that can make effective use of a memory area. To accomplish this, the image processing apparatus comprises storage means having a first management record storage area for storing a first management record used for management of image data and a second management record storage area for storing a second management record linked with the first management record, and acquisition means for acquiring an area for storing the first management record and the second management record in the storage means, the apparatus managing the image data using the first management record and the second management record in the storage means, the apparatus managing the image data using the first management record and the second management record, wherein the acquisition means acquires a storing area for storing the first management record in the second management record storage area, when the storing area for storing the first management record is not acquired in the first management record storage area.

An image processing apparatus which can accumulate image data has been known since before. However, conventionally, the memory area for management record for use in a file system within the apparatus was prepared by fixed size for each kind (job management record, file management record, page management record and image block management record). And a job management record was stored only in the memory area for job management record, a file management record was stored only in the memory area for file management record, a page management record was stored only in the memory area for page management record, and an image block management record was stored only in the memory area for image block management record (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-216192).
With the conventional image processing apparatus, if a storing area for any record could not be secured in the above memory area in storing the image data, the operation was ended with an error, even though there was room in other memory areas for management record. Therefore, it could work only by the number of jobs, the number of files, the number of pages and the image data accumulated block count that are decided in the device in advance. In other words, productivity was poor because the memory was not utilized effectively and memories had to be increased to prevent the error end.

Image processing apparatus, its control method and data management method