An automated chemical or biological sample analyzer includes a plurality of linear sample carrying racks that are moved to a processing station for conducting an analysis using one or more carousel devices. Under computer control, rotational movements of the carousel or carousels, linear movements of the transfer or shuttle mechanisms, and operation of a pipetting station are performed in a coordinated fashion so as to handle the processing of a large number of samples simultaneously in an optimized fashion that allows random ordering of samples for processing.

Automating chemical analyses is a desirable objective in a number of situations. For example, in the clinic or hospital setting, a large number of patient blood or urine samples need to be analyzed on a daily basis for a wide variety of different antigens or analytes. Highly advanced systems have been developed for analyzing these types of samples, and for allowing different tests to be performed on different samples as well as for recording test results for subsequent use in, for example, patient assessment and care. Exemplary systems are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,027,691; 5,902,548; 5,885,530; 5,885,529; 5,807,523; 5,723,092; 5,721,141; 5,632,399; 5,620,898; 5,318,748; 5,316,726; 5,258,309; 5,098,845; 5,084,240; 5,008,082 and 4,639,242 all of which are herein incorporated by reference. As another example, automated systems may be used for detecting contaminants in water sources, food products, etc.
Despite the advanced systems for automated chemical analysis, there remains a need for improving the level of automation, the mechanisms which allow random access to and testing of samples, and the speed in processing large numbers of samples (i.e., throughput). Presently, the current automated technologies either involve carousels, which allow large numbers of samples or agents to be present and easily accessible, or linear racks and conveyers where the materials stored in the racks are easily presented for operations in a sequential manner. While the carousel systems have the advantage of easy access to large numbers of samples, the prior art systems suffer from having to empty the carousels in a batch like process in order to handle new samples. Conversely, while the linear rack based systems allow for easy automation, it is generally more difficult to retrieve a sample at different times to perform different tests.

Carousel system for automated chemical or biological analyzers employing linear racks


An image forming apparatus includes a photoconductor, an exposure device, and a shutter assembly. The exposure device includes a light source configured to expose the photoconductor. The light source is repositionable between a proximity position at a first distance from the photoconductor and a separation position at a second distance from the photoconductor. The first distance is less than the second distance. The shutter assembly is configured to move away from the light source in response to the light source moving toward the proximity position. The shutter assembly is configured to move to cover the optical path of the light source in response to the light source moving toward the separation position.

When writing an image to a photoconductor, the print head of an image forming apparatus is positioned at a predetermined position close to a photoconductive unit in order to secure a focal position with the photoconductor. The print head is separated from the photoconductive unit, for example, during maintenance of the photoconductor. For example, when cleaning the print head, a user inserts a cleaning rod having a non-woven fabric or the like attached to the tip into a space created by separating the print head from the photoconductive unit to clean the surface of the print head.

Image forming apparatus with exposure device including shutter that moves in response to movement of a light source


A scheme is used to automatically discover algebraic constraints between pairs of columns in relational data. The constraints may be “fuzzy” in that they hold for most, but not all, of the records, and the columns may be in the same table or different tables. The scheme first identifies candidate sets of column value pairs that are likely to satisfy an algebraic constraint. For each candidate, the scheme constructs algebraic constraints by applying statistical histogramming, segmentation, or clustering techniques to samples of column values. In query-optimization mode, the scheme automatically partitions the data into normal and exception records. During subsequent query processing, queries can be modified to incorporate the constraints; the optimizer uses the constraints to identify new, more efficient access paths. The results are then combined with the results of executing the original query against the (small) set of exception records.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of databases. More specifically, the present invention is related to an algorithm to automatically identify algebraic constraints between pairs of columns in relational data.
2. Discussion of Prior Art
Commercial DBMS vendors increasingly view autonomic and self-managing technologies as crucial for maintaining the usability and decreasing the ownership costs of their systems. Self-tuning database systems have also been receiving renewed attention from the research community (see, for example, the paper by Weikum et al. entitled, "Self-tuning database technology and information services: from wishful thinking to viable engineering", and references therein). Query optimizers that actively learn about relationships in the data are an important component of this emerging technology.
Previous work on automatic methods for learning about data relationships can be categorized according to whether the learning technique is query- or data-driven, and according to the type of information discovered. Query-driven techniques have the property that the mined information is, by definition, directly relevant to the user's needs and interests. This narrowed focus often leads to high accuracy. On the other hand, query-driven techniques can result in poor performance during the "warm-up" stage of query processing in which not enough queries have been seen yet. Similar problems arise when the workload starts to change, or when processing a query that is unlike any query previously seen. Indeed, use of query-driven techniques can cause a learning optimizer to "careen towards ignorance" by preferring query plans about which less is known, even if the plans are actually quite inefficient. The reason for this preference is that, in the absence of solid information, an optimizer usually underestimates the cost of a plan, for example, by making unrealistic independence assumptions. Data-driven techniques, though often less precise, complement query-driven techniques and can ameliorate their shortcomings.
One useful type of information about relationships in data is the multidimensional distribution of a set of attributes. A variety of data-driven techniques have been developed for producing "synopses" that capture such distributions in a compressed form; (see, for example, the following papers/reports and references therein: (a) Barbara et al. in report entitled, "The New Jersey data reduction report"; (b) Deshpande et al. in the paper entitled, "Independence is good: Dependency-based histogram synopses for high-dimensional data"; (c) Garofalakis et al. in the paper entitled, "Wavelet synopses with error guarantees"; and (d) Poosala et al. in the paper entitled, "Selectivity estimation without the attribute value independence assumption"). These methods are based on a scan or sample of the database, which can be initiated by the user or by the system. The methods have somewhat less of an autonomic feel than query-driven methods, because typically the user must specify which attributes to include in each synopsis. Also, methods for maintaining and exploiting synopses are typically expensive and complicated and therefore are hard to implement in commercial database systems.
A number of researchers have provided methods for maintaining useful statistics on intermediate query results such as partial joins. The LEO learning optimizer, for example, improves cardinality estimates for intermediate results by observing the data returned by user queries (see paper by Stillger entitled, "LEO-DB2's LEaring Optimizer"). Techniques proposed by Bruno and Chaudhuri (see paper by Bruno et al., "Exploiting statistics on query expressions for optimization") determine the "most important" statistics on intermediate query expressions (SITs) to maintain based on a workload analysis.
The information provided by the foregoing techniques is used by the optimizer to improve the cost estimates of the various access plans under consideration. An alternative set of techniques provides information to the optimizer in the form of rules or constraints. The optimizer can directly use such information to consider alternative access paths. Important types of constraints include functional dependencies, multi-valued dependencies, and semantic integrity constraints.
Two columns a1 and a2 of categorical data obey a functional dependency if the value of a1 determines the value of a2. A typical example of a functional dependency occurs when a1 contains car models and a2 contains car makes. For example, a car model value of Camry implies a car make value of Toyota. A multi-valued dependency is a generalization of a functional dependency that in effect provides a necessary and sufficient condition under which a relation can be decomposed into smaller normalized relations. Mining of functional and multi-valued dependencies is discussed in various papers (see the following papers: (a) the paper by Bell et al. entitled, "Discovery of constraints and data dependencies in databases"; (b) the paper by Huhtala et al. entitled, "TANE: An efficient algorithm for discovering functional and approximate dependencies"; (c) the paper by Petitet al. entitled, "Towards the reverse engineering of denormalized relational databases"; and (d) the paper by Wong et al. entitled, "Automated database schema design using mined data dependencies").
Semantic integrity constraints arise in the setting of semantic query optimization. For example, Siegel et al. in the paper entitled, "A method for automatic rule derivation to support semantic query optimization" and Yu et al. in the paper entitled, "Automatic knowledge acquisition and maintenance for semantic query optimization", consider query-driven approaches for discovering constraints of the form A→B and JC→(A→B), where JC is a join condition, and A→B is a rule such as s.city=chicago→t.weight>200.
The above-mentioned prior art techniques are closely related to techniques used in reverse engineering and discovery of entity-relationship (ER) models for legacy databases (see, for example, the following papers and references therein: the paper by Bell et al. entitled, "Discovery of constraints and data dependencies in databases" and the paper by Petit et al. entitled, "Towards the reverse engineering of denormalized relational databases"). Many of these algorithms rely on information contained in the schema definition—such as primary-key declarations—or in a set of workload queries. Algorithms such as those described in Bell et al. and Petit et al. execute a sequence of queries involving joins and COUNT(DISTINCT) operations to discover inclusion dependencies—an inclusion dependency exists between columns a1 and a2 if every value that appears in a2 also appears in a1.
The following patents/references provide for a general teaching in the area of data mining, but they fail to provide for the limitations of the present invention's method.
The U.S. patent publication to Carlbom et al. (US 2003/0023612) discloses a system performing data mining based upon real-time analysis of sensor data. The performance data mining system combines detailed sensor analysis data with other data sources to discover interesting patterns/rules for performance and utilizes real time sensor analysis to dynamically derive mining results in real time during an event. The system described in Carlbom et al. automatically generates advice/strategy and predictions based on specified criteria.
The U.S. patent publication to Wolff et al. (2002/0198877) provides for a method for mining association rules in a database that is divided into multiple partitions associated with respective computer nodes. The method of Wolff et al. includes transmitting messages among the nodes with respect to local support of an itemset in the respective partitions of the database. Responsive to the messages transmitted by a subset of the nodes, the itemset is determined to be globally frequent in the database before the nodes outside the subset have transmitted the messages with respect to the local support of the itemset in their respective partitions. An association rule is computed with respect to the itemset, responsive to having determined the itemset to be globally frequent.
The U.S. patent to Wang et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 6,415,287) provides for a method and system for mining weighted association rule. Wang et al. extend the traditional association rule problem by allowing a weight to be associate with each item in a transaction to reflect interest/intensity of each item within the transaction. The weighted association rules from a set of tuple lists are discovered, where each tuple consists of an item and an associated weight and each tuple list consists of multiple tuples.
The U.S. patent to Mitsubishi et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 6,385,608) discloses a method and apparatus for discovering association rules. A candidate-itemset generating unit generates a candidate-itemset composed of at least one candidate item to be included in the left hand side or the right hand side of the association rule. A candidate-itemset verifying unit selects itemsets having frequencies (appearing times in the database) more than the minimum frequency out of the candidate-itemsets, as large-itemsets. A candidate rule generating unit generates candidate association rules based on a large-itemset of k−1 long and a large-itemset of 1 long. A chi-square testing unit generates an association rule set based on the candidate association rules.
The U.S. patent to Ozden et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 6,278,998) discloses a system and method for discovering association rules that display regular cyclic variation over time. Such association rules may apply over daily, weekly or monthly (or other) cycles of sales data or the like. A first technique, referred to as the sequential algorithm, treats association rules and cycles relatively independently. Based on the interaction between association rules and time, Ozden employs a technique called cycle pruning, which reduces the amount of time needed to find cyclic association rules. A second technique, referred to as the interleaved algorithm, uses cycle pruning and other optimization techniques for discovering cyclic association rules with reduced overhead.
The U.S. patent to Mahajan et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 6,236,982) discloses a method that uses calendars to describe the variation of association rules over time, where a specific calendar is defined as a collection of time intervals describing the same phenomenon.
The U.S. patent to Aggarwal et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,943,667) discloses a computer method for removing simple and strict redundant association rules generated from large collections of data. The U.S. Pat. No. 6,061,682, to Agrawal et al., provides for a method and apparatus for mining association rules having item constraints. The U.S. Pat. No. 5,842,200, also to Agrawal et al., provides for a system and method for parallel mining of association rules in database.
The Japanese patent to Shigeru et al. (JP 2001-344259) provides for an incremental mining method which increases the data mining speed at the time of data addition or deletion.
The paper by Czejdo et al., entitled "Materialized views in data mining," discloses the use of materialized views in the domains of association rules discovery and sequential pattern search.
The paper by Lee et al. entitled, "On Mining General Temporal Association Rules in a Publication Database," discloses a progressive partition miner, wherein the cumulative information of mining previous partitions is selectively carried over toward the generation of candidate itemsets for the subsequent partitions.
The paper by Bosc et al. entitled, "On some fuzzy extensions of association rules," discloses the semantics of two fuzzy extensions of the classical concept of an association rule.
The paper by Manning et al. entitled, "Data allocation algorithm for parallel association rule discovery," discloses an algorithm that uses principal component analysis to improve data distribution prior to fast parallel mining.
The paper by Srikant et al. entitled, "Mining quantitative association rules in large relational tables," discloses techniques for mining in large relation tables containing both quantitative and categorical attributes.
The paper by Tsai et al. entitled, "Mining quantitative association rules in a large database of sales transactions," discloses partition algorithms for partitioning data and a scheme to discover all the large itemsets from the partitioned data.
The paper by Godfrey et al. entitled, "Exploiting Constraint-Like Data Characterizations in Query Optimization," discloses advantages of optimizing queries in a database like DB2 given a set of integrity constraints. The paper by Gryz et al. entitled, "Discovery and Application of Check Constraints in DB2," discloses advantages of identifying regularities in data stored in a database such as DB2.
Whatever the precise merits, features, and advantages of the above cited references, none of them achieves or fulfills the purposes of the present invention.

Method for discovering undeclared and fuzzy rules in databases

International Business Machines Corporation


The present invention relates to methods of reducing negative flavor attributes, such as bitterness, in coffee products. A coffee product with reduced perceptible bitterness may be prepared by providing a coffee product and adding vanillic acid to the coffee product.

Bitterness is often undesirable in the food and beverage industry. Bitter blocking or masking compounds or ingredients are often added to reduce the bitter taste in food and beverage products to make the product more palatable to the consumer.
Coffee and similar consumable beverages may exhibit negative flavor attributes undesirable to the consumer, which may include but not limited to, for example, bitter, ashy, burnt, woody, and/or papery notes.
Creamers are well known in the art, in dry powder form or liquid form, for addition to such coffee or similar beverages for masking such undesired flavor attributes in these coffee beverages. See for example, U.S. Pat. Publ. No. 2007/0178215 A1, which discloses a de-bittering creamer wherein a commercially available de-bittering agent is added as part of the creamer to block negative flavor attributes. The de-bittering agent may comprise sodium salt, a potassium salt, gluconate, a bitterness blocker, and/or a combination of any one or more thereof.
Other consumable products may comprise bitter blockers such as theobromine, theophylline, trilobatin, hesperitin, and/or hesperitin dihydro chalcone 4-beta-D-glucoside (HDG) as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 9,844,224. The bitter blocker has a concentration of 0.3-200 parts per million (ppm).
One compound known as sophorolipids, such as C16-SL, C19-SL, C18:1-SL, and in various mixtures thereof, are also used to inhibit, modulate, or reduce bitter taste in edible compositions, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 10,155,043. The composition may comprise at least one sophorolipid and optional carrier, and/or a bitter tastant therewith, wherein the bitter taste of the bitter tastant is inhibited, modulated, or reduced.
Ingredients such as palm sugar, burnt sugar, and/or powdered spices together with other ingredients such as cinnamon, ginger, lemon rind, coriander, and cardamom, and/or other powdered spices, have also been used in coffee powders to invert bitterness, as disclosed in DE19540014C2.
As disclosed in WO2019040989A1, consumable beverages that contain sugar substitutes, or low sugar or reduced sugar consumables, have been known to add extracts derived from sugar cane to improve or mask a taste such as bitterness. The extracts derived from sugar may include an amount of vanillic acid that is detectable by gas chromatography—mass spectrometry among a large number of other compounds.
Further, as disclosed in US20090004360A1, sweetener compositions have been developed to consist of a sweetener with sucrose equivalence, first non-sweetener composition with sucrose equivalence modifier, and second composition with sweet flavor modifier to modify the perception of a sweet flavor wherein said sweetener composition may comprise vanillic acid, among others.
Further, conventional methods of masking a bitter taste including the addition of using creamers, sweeteners, amino acids, and flavoring, alone or in various combinations may be inadequate at reducing or masking the bitter taste of food and beverage products.
Often these negative flavor attributes are masked by the addition of ingredients not naturally present in coffee or by the addition of flavor and/or spices. However, for consumers who do not wish to add the foregoing to their coffee, or who rather drink their coffee black, are looking for an alternative solution to reduce or mask the bitterness in coffee or beverages made therefrom.
Presently it would be desirable in the art to prepare food products with reduced perceptible bitterness without substantially altering the flavor of the food.

Methods for reducing negative flavor attributes in coffee and compositions therefrom


A softness adjusting device for a vehicle seat is arranged under the seat cover of the vehicle seat and includes a soft inflatable bag and a valve component arranged outside the soft inflatable bag. The valve component includes a throttle valve and a one-way check valve. The throttle valve is configured to block or communicate a gas in the soft inflatable bag from or with an external air source. The one-way check valve provides a flow direction from outside to inside and is configured to fill the soft inflatable bag with the external air source when the pressure of the external air source is greater than air pressure in the cavity of the soft inflatable bag. The soft inflatable bag is filled with at least one flexible filler.

In recent years, with people's understanding and improvement of comfort of seats, people have gradually realized that intelligent adjustability of softness (or hardness) of the surface of a seat has important significance and influence on the enhancement and research of comfort, in addition to the fact that a comfortable seat is traditionally believed to have a good wrap-around ergonomic design and good softness, breathability, and supporting capability.
Prior art structures for adjusting softness of seats by means of air have the following disadvantages. Softness Adjusting Devices for vehicle seats have high cost due to the use of electronic components and air distribution structures such as solenoid valves, air pumps and controllers, and high maintenance costs are also required when circuits and components fail.

Softness adjusting device for vehicle seat, vehicle seat, and vehicle

LANGFANG GOLDEN TIME TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT CO., LTD.


A discharge system includes: a secondary battery pack; a discharge device; and an application software running on a personal computer connected to the discharge device. The application software receives total battery voltage information, temperature information, and over-discharge information of the secondary battery pack through the discharge device, determines deterioration of the secondary battery pack based on the informations, and displays results of the determination. Further, the application software instructs the discharge device to terminate the discharge when the temperature in the pack exceeds a predetermined value and/or an over-discharge is detected.

There is disclosed a discharge system which performs the discharge of a secondary battery to diagnose the life span of the secondary battery (see, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-43059). In such a discharge system, there are cases where a temperature of the secondary battery rises when the secondary battery is discharged, or where an over-discharge occurs in one of cells if there is a voltage difference between the cells in the secondary battery including two or more cells connected in series. This requests a measure in the aspect of safety and life span of the secondary battery.
Further, the conventional discharge system can be applied only to existing secondary batteries. Therefore, even if a secondary battery with, e.g., a different total battery voltage is newly provided, the conventional discharge system cannot be applied to the new secondary battery.

Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.


Systems, methods, and devices for communicating data in a wireless communications network are described herein. One innovative aspect of the present disclosure includes a method of communicating in a wireless network. The wireless network includes an access point and a relay. The method includes indicating to a client, at the relay, a network address of the access point. The method further includes receiving an association request, from the client, addressed to the access point. The method further includes forwarding the association request to the access point.

1. Field
The present application relates generally to wireless communications, and more specifically to systems, methods, and devices for using a relay in a wireless communication network.
2. Background
In many telecommunication systems, communications networks are used to exchange messages among several interacting spatially-separated devices. Networks can be classified according to geographic scope, which could be, for example, a metropolitan area, a local area, or a personal area. Such networks would be designated respectively as a wide area network (WAN), metropolitan area network (MAN), local area network (LAN), wireless local area network (WLAN), or personal area network (PAN). Networks also differ according to the switching/bridging technique used to interconnect the various network nodes and devices (e.g., circuit switching vs. packet switching), the type of physical media employed for transmission (e.g., wired vs. wireless), and the set of communication protocols used (e.g., Internet protocol suite, SONET (Synchronous Optical Networking), Ethernet, etc.).
Wireless networks are often preferred when the network elements are mobile and thus have dynamic connectivity needs, or if the network architecture is formed in an ad hoc, rather than fixed, topology. Wireless networks employ intangible physical media in an unguided propagation mode using electromagnetic waves in the radio, microwave, infra-red, optical, etc., frequency bands. Wireless networks advantageously facilitate user mobility and rapid field deployment when compared to fixed wired networks.
The devices in a wireless network can transmit/receive information between each other. In some aspects, the devices on a wireless network can have a limited transmission range. Relay devices can extend the range of a wireless network, but can increase overhead such as, for example, association, encryption, and filtering overhead. Thus, improved systems, methods, and devices for associating, encrypting, and filtering are desired for wireless networks having at least one relay node.

Systems, apparatus, and methods for association in multi-hop networks


A device for feeding oil to a seat of a bearing (5) that supports a rotatable shaft (3) includes an annular oil reservoir (14) surrounding a seat of the bearing (5), an oil pump (8) having two spindles (10, 11) with oppositely extending, respectively feeding channels, oil delivery conduit means (20); and oil return conduit (24, 25, 26, 27) provided on axially opposite sides of the bearing seat.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device for feeding oil to a seat of a bearing that supports a rotatable shaft.
2. Description of the Prior Art
With rotatable shafts supported in oil-lubricated bearings, a continuous feeding of oil to bearing seats is insured by an oil feeding device. There exists different devices or arrangements for feeding oil, e.g., oil can be fed to bearing seats by a separately driven oil pump through tubular conduits. Also know is an arrangement with which a lower end of a rotatable vertical shaft is submerged in an oil reservoir, and a section of the shafts, which is formed as a helical thread, forms a device for feeding oil to bearing seats. For feeding oil to bearing seats from an oil reservoir, also, wicks can be used. This solution, however, does not allow to monitor the flow of oil.
In all of the above-discussed cases, a continuous and uniform feeding of oil depends on a mounting position of the rotatable shaft. In many cases it is desirable that the mounting position of a shaft is not prefixed but is variable so that the position can be adapted to a particular use. E.g., with the use of turbomolecular pumps which are equipped with rapidly rotatable rotor shafts with which a continuous and uniform feeding of oil to bearing seats is particularly important, the rotor shaft can occupy different positions dependent on a particular use of the turbomolecular pump, e.g., the rotor shaft can occupy a vertical, horizontal or overhead position.
The conventional oil feeding devices significantly limit the mounting positions the shaft can occupy. During transportation of the machines or apparatuses with oil-lubricated bearings, oil should be removed from a reservoir as a predetermined or prefixed position of the shaft cannot be maintained during transportation.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a device for feeding oil to bearing seats of a rotatable shaft and which would insure a continuous and uniform feeding of oil and monitoring of oil flow independent on the mounting position of the rotatable shaft.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an oil-feeding device that would insure transportation of the machine and apparatuses with oil-lubricated bearings of the rotatable shafts, without removing oil from the oil reservoir.

Device for feeding oil to a bearing seat of a rotatable shaft


A method of considering the dynamic behavior of a movable member of a machine for performing a wheel fatigue test, the wheel including a disc and a rim, the method including mounting the wheel by fixing the wheel rim relative to a fixed structure of the machine, and securing the disc relative to the movable member which is movable to transmit a cyclical bending moment to the wheel, exerting a cyclical force on the movable member to generate the bending moment, at a distant position from the wheel, and while exerting the cyclical force, determining an indication of bending moment in the movable member at a first position between the wheel and the distant position, determining an indication of bending moment in the movable member at a second position between the first position and the distant position, and using the indications of bending moment at both of the first and second positions to determine an actual bending moment applied to the wheel.

This invention relates to a method of considering the dynamic behaviour of a movable member of a machine for performing a wheel fatigue test, and more particularly to a method of determining a bending moment applied to the wheel as the member moves.
Wheels typically are constituted by two main parts namely a circular rim to which in use, a tyre is mounted, and a disc by means of which the wheel is securable to a hub of a vehicle. In order to predict the service life of a wheel of a particular design, it is known to conduct a fatigue test which involves clamping the rim to a fixed structure and attaching the disc to a member which moves to apply a bending moment to the wheel. Accurate determination of the bending moment applied is required for the testing method.

Method of considering the dynamic behavior of a movable member of a machine for performing a wheel fatigue test


Bias circuitry that may be used within a communications or other device includes a first current mirror having first and second transistors with sources coupled to ground and operable to receive a reference current at a drain of first transistor. A second current mirror has first and second transistors with drains coupled to a battery voltage supply. A third current mirror has first and second transistors with drains coupled to sources of the first and second transistors of the second current mirror, respectively. A biasing transistor couples between the second transistor of the first current mirror and the first transistor of the third current mirror and operable to receive a tuning input voltage at its gate. A resistive element coupled between the second transistor of the third current mirror and ground produces a bias voltage produced at a connection of the resistive element and the second transistor of the third current mirror.

1. Technical Field
This invention relates generally to electronic circuitry and more particularly to bias voltage circuitry.
2. Related Art
Communication systems are known to support wireless and wire lined communications between wireless and/or wire lined communication devices. Such communication systems range from national and/or international cellular telephone systems to the Internet to point-to-point in-home wireless networks. Each type of communication system is constructed, and hence operates, in accordance with one or more communication standards. For instance, wireless communication systems may operate in accordance with one or more standards including, but not limited to, IEEE 802.11x, Bluetooth, wireless wide area networks (e.g., WiMAX), advanced mobile phone services (AMPS), digital AMPS, global system for mobile communications (GSM), North American code division multiple access (CDMA), Wideband CDMA, local multi-point distribution systems (LMDS), multi-channel-multi-point distribution systems (MMDS), radio frequency identification (RFID), Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE), General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), and many others.
Depending on the type of wireless communication system, a wireless communication device, such as a cellular telephone, two-way radio, personal digital assistant (PDA), personal computer (PC), laptop computer, home entertainment equipment, RFID reader, RFID tag, et cetera communicates directly or indirectly with other wireless communication devices. For direct communications (also known as point-to-point communications), the participating wireless communication devices tune their receivers and transmitters to the same channel or channels (e.g., one of the plurality of radio frequency (RF) carriers of the wireless communication system or a particular RF frequency for some systems) and communicate over that channel(s). For indirect wireless communications, each wireless communication device communicates directly with an associated base station (e.g., for cellular services) and/or an associated access point (e.g., for an in-home or in-building wireless network) via an assigned channel. To complete a communication connection between the wireless communication devices, the associated base stations, and/or associated access points communicate with each other directly, via a system controller, via the public switch telephone network, via the Internet, and/or via some other wide area network.
For each wireless communication device to participate in wireless communications, it includes a built-in radio transceiver (i.e., receiver and transmitter) or is coupled to an associated radio transceiver (e.g., a station for in-home and/or in-building wireless communication networks, RF modem, etc.). As is known, the receiver is coupled to an antenna and includes a low noise amplifier, one or more intermediate frequency stages, a filtering stage, and a data recovery stage. The low noise amplifier receives inbound RF signals via the antenna and amplifies then. The one or more intermediate frequency stages mix the amplified RF signals with one or more local oscillations to convert the amplified RF signal into baseband signals or intermediate frequency (IF) signals. The filtering stage filters the baseband signals or the IF signals to attenuate unwanted out of band signals to produce filtered signals. The data recovery stage recovers raw data from the filtered signals in accordance with the particular wireless communication standard. As is also known, the transmitter includes a data modulation stage, one or more intermediate frequency stages, and a power amplifier. The data modulation stage converts raw data into baseband signals in accordance with a particular wireless communication standard. The one or more intermediate frequency stages mix the baseband signals with one or more local oscillations to produce RF signals. The power amplifier amplifies the RF signals prior to transmission via an antenna.
In wireless communication devices, the RF power amplifier is often required to provide a high swing at its output. The RF power amplifier must also be very linear in its operation and also use as little power as possible. These competing goals are very difficult to meet. Conventional integrated circuitry is voltage limited due to device dimensions. Thus, the RF power amplifier is thus limited in its operational swing due to the voltage level at which it can operate. Further, when battery voltage exceeds the voltage limitation of the integrated circuit, a voltage regulator is required to generate a voltage that is usable by the integrated circuit. These shortcomings, among others are addressed by aspects of the present invention further described herein.

CMOS RF power amplifier with LDMOS bias circuit for large supply voltages


Method and arrangement for supporting calibration of correlated antennas. The method involves determining a timing difference τ between the correlated antennas based on variations in carrier signal strength over frequency in at least one direction from the correlated antennas and providing the determined timing difference τ for use in calibration of the correlated antennas.

In today's cellular systems the use of multiple antennas (MIMO) for transmission is becoming increasingly important. The antenna system can be designed with either correlated or uncorrelated antenna elements, or combinations thereof where some antenna elements are correlated and others uncorrelated.
To fully be able to exploit the potential of these MIMO systems the correlated antenna elements need to be calibrated both in phase and amplitude. Antenna calibration is mostly important when an antenna configuration includes correlated antenna elements and for features that require well directed beams. An example of such an antenna configuration is the commonly used 4-antenna configuration with 2 closely spaced cross-polarized elements 102a,102b, which is illustrated in FIG. 1. The cross-polarized elements, or cross-poles, 102a,102b, each comprises two mutually uncorrelated cross-polarized antenna elements, 1+3 (102a) and 2+4 (102b), respectively. The antenna elements 1 and 2 are illustrated as dashed lines, and the antenna elements 3 and 4 are illustrated as solid lines in FIG. 1. The "dashed" antenna elements, 1 and 2 have the same polarization and compose a first pair of correlated antennas. The "solid" antennas, 3 and 4 have the same polarization and compose a second pair of correlated antennas.
One source of error is timing differences between antenna branches due to feeder length differences or delay differences in the radio chains. Most calibration techniques require additional hardware or other adjustments for calibration purpose only, which is expensive and inefficient.


A displacement sensor includes: a light projecting element for illuminating a measurement aim object at a predetermined angle with light; a light receiving element for receiving a reflected light from the measurement aim object illuminated with light; an automatic measurement aim region setting device for automatically setting measurement regions for respective acquired two reflecting surfaces by automatically increasing a light emitting quantity of the light projecting element by a predetermined quantity at a time from a predetermined value of the light projecting element till two or more reflecting surfaces of the measurement aim object are acquired on the light receiving element; and a displacement measuring device performing desired measurement of displacement based on a received light image on the light receiving element.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to setting a measurement aim region in a displacement sensor, and in particular, to a setting method for a measurement region having plural areas as aims each different in refractive index from the others, in a case where a transparent object such as glass is as a measurement aim object.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a non-contact displacement sensor (adopting a laser or the like as a light source) using a triangular distance measuring method, a light projecting element illuminates a measurement aim object with light directed thereto and information on which position of a light receiving element light reflected from the measurement aim object is converged to is employed to thereby measure a distance to the measurement aim object.
In a case where a transparent object such as glass is measured as a measurement aim with such a displacement sensor, however, two kinds of reflected light which are generated from a front surface and back surface of the glass are usually generated. Such a glass often has a back surface with a film such as a metal coat or the like even though a front surface has no coverage, and in a case where such a glass with a film is measured, a difference in reflected light quantity occurs between the front and back surfaces due to difference in refractive index. Examples thereof are a glass plate used as a Brown tube of a television receiver, a glass plate of a liquid crystal panel or the like. In such a case, if an emitted light quantity of the light projecting element and a light receiving sensitivity such as a light receiving gain of the light receiving element are adjusted in order to be adapted for one surface, a light receiving state on the other surface cannot be held to be proper (a received light quantity is excessively large or small), which makes positions of the front and back surfaces hard to be correctly acquired.
Besides, in a case where a glass measurement is conducted, there are incoming light by reflection from the front and back surfaces or a multiple reflection. In such a situation, a necessity arises for individual surfaces to be separately recognized with respect to light receiving positions in order to stably measure a surface displacement of the glass or a thickness of the glass. As a measure therefor, an area in the vicinity of a light receiving position which is desired to be measured is set as a measurement aim region, thereby enabling the set measurement aim region to be stably measured.
In a case where, as shown in FIG. 11A, in setting of a predetermined laser light emitting quantity and a light receiving sensitivity, a glass plate is measured as a measurement aim object, reflected light quantities from the front surface and back surface of a glass are clearly different from each other with respect to an image obtained from the receiving light element, leading to a chance of disabling either of both quantities to be measured. In setting of a predetermined laser light emitting quantity and a predetermined light receiving sensitivity, as shown in FIG. 11B, there often occurs a case where a received light image of only one of the front surface and back surface is obtained due to an excessively large difference in reflectance between the front and back surfaces of the glass. In such a case, if a laser light emitting quantity is increased or a light receiving sensitivity of the entire pixel region of a light receiving element is enhanced, so that stable measurement is secured for one surface from which a smaller received light quantity is given, saturation occurs for the other reflecting surface, having produced a problem that stable measurement is disabled.
In order to cope with such a situation, for example, a measurement region is, as shown in FIG. 11C, limited to a region enclosed by dotted lines, and a laser light emitting quantity or a light receiving gain is adjusted only for the region to thereby enable light from a surface on which measurement is desired to be stably received without exerting an adverse influence on the other surface.
A displacement sensor has been known that enables plural regions having respective arbitrary sizes to be discretely set in the entire pixel region of an image pick-up element (refer to, for example, WO 2001/057471).
In a case where a received light quantity from a surface with a smaller reflectance cannot be, as shown in FIG. 11(b), observed on a screen image obtained from a light receiving element because of a setting state of a light receiving sensitivity at that time, there is a high possibility that a sensitivity matching a surface from which a larger received light quantity given is set while not taking notice of the presence of the surface with a smaller reflectance. Though it is desirable to detect all the reflecting surfaces and to set the measurement aim regions on the respective surfaces, it can be said to be difficult to take notice of even a necessity for such an operation. In a case where reflecting surfaces are remote from each other and an image on one reflecting surface resides outside the measurable range of displacement measurement on a light receiving element, the image is not on the light receiving element; therefore, the reflecting surface cannot be found despite of all the effort of searching therefor and a measurement aim region cannot be set thereon. In such a case, operator in charge has a chance to regard it due to unskilled setting of a sensitivity despite the fact that the problem is caused by a distance between a glass, which is a detection aim, and a displacement sensor to repeat a try-and-error approach and to thereby increase time and labor to be consumed thereon. Since, in such a way, an image of a surface with a low reflectance has a possibility of the presence, even if the image is not observed and a case arises where a surface, which is low in reflectance as a measurement aim, cannot appear on an image of a light receiving element because of being outside the range of displacement measurement, an operation of setting a measurement region is of difficult determination having to give a consideration to a range of a displacement sensor, a spacing between reflecting surfaces of a measurement aim object and an installment spacing between the displacement sensor and a reflecting surface in addition to a necessity therefor, which is hard to take the operation to be performed by the operator at a job site with ease.
A problem has been pointed out that a user is necessary to be participated in such an operation, which loses an operational efficiency.
In a case where, in such a way, an approximate position of a measurement aim region is visually recognized by a user with a received light waveform displayed on a monitor or the like and thereafter a measurement region is set by manual input, a measurement region can be set in the situation shown in FIG. 11A, grasping with some accuracy which position a second reflecting surface is present at, while since it is not known where a second reflecting surface is present in a situation shown in FIG. 11B, a complicated operation is requested, in order to recognize the position, that a laser light emitting quantity of a light projecting element and a light receiving sensitivity of a light receiving element are adjusted in advance of setting of a measurement region, which have pointed a problem of a great reduction in operational efficiency.

Displacement sensor equipped with automatic setting device for measurement region


A current limiting circuit (70) controls the leakage current of a memory circuit (24) of a portable wireless device (10) while operating in a standby mode. A first semiconductor well (64) isolates the memory circuit (24) that is disposed in a second semiconductor well (66) from a substrate (62). In the standby mode the current limiting circuit (70) is switched to a non-conduction mode that limits the leakage currents of a diode formed by the first semiconductor well (66) with the second semiconductor well (64) and a diode formed by the second semiconductor well (64) with the substrate (62).

The present invention relates, in general, to integrated circuits and, more particularly, to current limiting circuits.
A portable wireless system such as a cellular phone or a pager uses analog and active circuitry to convert signals between frequencies ranging from radio frequency (RF) to base band. Received RF signals are converted to base-band signals through circuits such as an RF transceiver, a down converter, and a demodulator. In the case of a cellular phone, the converted base-band signals are processed into recognizable speech in the voice band frequencies. The portable wireless system typically draws its operating power from a battery source. Analog and active circuitry in the portable wireless system are primary sources of battery current drain during system operation.
The transistors of the analog and active circuitry have well regions formed in a substrate of the integrated circuit. The reverse-biased PN-junction diodes formed by the well regions in the substrate have leakage currents based on the junction area of the diodes. When the portable wireless system is not transmitting or receiving signals the system enters a standby mode to prolong battery life. In standby mode a majority of the analog and active circuitry is disabled which causes the diode leakage currents to be the dominant current that diminishes the life of the battery.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to have a circuit that limits the diode leakage currents of an integrated circuit during a standby mode to prolong the battery life of a portable wireless system. It would be of further advantage that the current limiting circuit have a small size and be easily integrated.

Circuit and method of limiting leakage current in a memory circuit


A double-sided liquid crystal display device including a liquid crystal material, first and second electrodes for driving the liquid crystal material, first and second polarizers disposed on opposite sides of the liquid crystal material, a front light disposed at the opposite side of the first polarizer from the liquid crystal material, and a semitransmission reflector disposed at the same side of the liquid crystal material as the second polarizer for passing a part of light from the front light side passing through the liquid crystal. The first polarizer is disposed to absorb or transmit light passing through the liquid crystal material, and the second polarizer is disposed to absorb or transmit light passing through the liquid crystal material and then passing through the semitransmission reflector.

Prior Art 1
A prior art of liquid crystal display device is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 10-326515, in which a reflection type liquid crystal display element having a reflector is provided, and a front illumination device (front light) is disposed in front of the reflection type liquid crystal element, and this reflection type liquid crystal display device is used by turning off the front light where a sufficient quantity of ambient light is available, for example, in an outdoor place during daytime, and is used by lighting the front light where sufficient quantity of ambient light is not obtained.
Prior Art 2
Other prior art of liquid crystal display device is a semitransmission reflection type liquid crystal display device for making reflection type display using external light in a bright place, or transmission type display by backlight in a dark place.
As proposed, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei 10-186362, this semitransmission reflection liquid crystal display device has a liquid crystal display panel 100 including front side polarizing means, front side transparent plate, a transmission liquid crystal display unit, a back side transparent plate, and back side polarizing means, as shown in a sectional view of FIG. 19, in which a backlight 120 composed of a fluorescent lamp, a reflector and a triangular light-conducting plate is disposed at the opposite side (back side) of the observation side of this liquid crystal display panel 100, and semitransmission reflecting means 110 composed of half mirror or magic mirror having aluminum or the like affixed to a thin transparent film base by vapor deposition, with the film base being adhered, for example, to the back side of the back side polarizing means, is disposed between the backlight 120 and the transmission type liquid crystal display unit. In FIG. 19, reference numeral 130 denotes a light scattering plate comprising prism plate or diffusion film, 140 a circuit board for driving the liquid crystal display panel 100, and 150 a casing accommodating the liquid crystal display panel 100, semitransmission reflecting means 110, backlight 120, scattering plate 130 and circuit board 140.
In the semitransmission reflection type liquid crystal display device having such configuration, in a bright place, external light is taken in as indicated by arrow b, and reflection type display is made by making use of the light reflected by the semitransmission reflecting means 110, and in a dark place, the backlight 120 is lit, and transmission type display is made so that the display might be recognized by the light passing through the semitransmission reflecting means 110 as indicated by arrow a.
Prior Art 3
A different example of semitransmission reflection type liquid crystal display device is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2001-083494, that is, as shown in a sectional view of FIG. 20, this semitransmission reflection liquid crystal display device comprises a transparent first substrate 210; a transparent second substrate 220 disposed opposite to this first substrate 210, and having a color filter, a transparent electrode and an alignment film disposed at the side opposite to the first substrate 210; a liquid crystal 230 interposed between the first substrate 210 and second substrate 220; a backlight 240 disposed at the opposite side of the liquid crystal 230 of the first substrate 210; a transparent second insulation film 250 disposed at the side opposite to the second substrate 220 of the first substrate 210; a reflection electrode 260 disposed on the second insulation film 250 and having an opening for passing light from the backlight 240; a transparent first insulation film 270 disposed on the reflection electrode layer 260; and an alignment film 280 disposed on the first insulation film 270. In FIG. 20, moreover, reference numeral 291 denotes a polarizer, 292 a phase difference plate, and 293 a sealing material.
The semitransmission reflection type liquid crystal display device having such configuration can display by changing over between reflection type display using the light reflected by the reflection electrode 260 by taking in external light, and transmission type display using the light passing through the opening in the reflection electrode 260 emitted from the backlight 240. Further, in this prior art 3, unlike prior art 2, there is no transparent electrode between the reflecting means and the liquid crystal, and the optical path is shorter in the reflection type display, and therefore the parallax in display image is reduced and the brightness in display image is enhanced.
Prior Art 4
A conventional information appliance disclosed, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Hei 8-163638, is a mobile phone comprising, as shown in a perspective view of FIG. 21, a first main body having various operation switches, and a second main body having a liquid crystal display device connected thereto in an opening and closing manner for visibly displaying various kinds of information, and when the second main body is opened, a large screen image display is possible by the liquid crystal display device, and when the second main body is closed, it is reduced to a compact size suited to portable use. In FIG. 21, specifically, reference numeral 301 denotes the first main body having various function switches 307 including alphanumerical input switches, 302 denotes the second main body having the liquid crystal display device 304 for visibly displaying various kinds of information and coupled to the first main body 301 in an opening and closing manner, 303 denotes a coupling unit of the first main body 301 and second main body 302, 305 denotes an antenna, and 306 denotes a button switch for validating the inside and outside range display function when the second main body 302 is manipulated in closed state. Reference numeral 308 denotes a lamp displaying "inside" or "outside", and specifically the inside range is displayed in a green light and the outside range in a red light, or the range is indicated by lighting or flickering, so that the inside and outside can be known at a glance.
In the information appliance having such configuration, when the button switch 306 is manipulated in the closed state of the second main body 302, the display lamp 308 displays, so that either "inside" or "outside" of the range can be visually recognized easily.
The conventional liquid crystal display device is thus constituted, and whether in reflection type liquid crystal display device or semitransmission reflection type liquid crystal display device, there is only one display panel, and there is even no idea about liquid crystal display device capable of displaying in both face and reverse sides.
In the conventional folding type information appliance, when the second main body is closed, although the inside or outside of the range can be visually recognized by the lit color, or lighting or flickering of the display lamp disposed separately from the liquid crystal display device, the display image by the liquid crystal display device cannot be recognized visually in the closed state of the second main body same as in the opened state. As a countermeasure, there might be considered to add an extra liquid crystal display device exclusive for closed state of the second main body, but the number of parts is increased, and hence the weight, volume and cost are increased.
Prior Art 5
Other conventional information appliance is an electronic appliance disclosed, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-193956, which is one liquid crystal display device comprising, as shown in FIG. 22, a liquid crystal 516 enclosed by a pair of first reflection polarizer 599 and first absorption type polarizer 531, and second reflection polarizer 539 and second absorption type polarizer 519; and a light source light-conducting plate 512 disposed at the outermost side. In a bright place, reflection type image can be seen by making use of external light b from both sides, and in a dark place, by emitting light a from the light source light-conducting plate 512, a bright reflection screen can be observed through the light-conducting plate from the light source light-conducting plate 512 side, or from the opposite side, a bright transmission image can be seen.
Here, reference numeral 526 denotes a transparent electrode for driving the liquid crystal 516, and 550 a scattering layer.
However, in the liquid crystal display device disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No 2000-193956 and the electronic appliance using the same, when the surrounding is slightly bright, if the image is observed from the opposite side of the light source light-conducting plate 512, since the external light b is insufficient, the brightness is not enough even in the liquid crystal element driven by the transparent electrode 526 so that the external light b is reflected by the first reflection polarizer 599 to be displayed in white. At this time, to increase the brightness of the image, if the light source light-conducting plate 512 is lit to emit light a, the polarized light a after passing through the first reflection polarizer 599 and first absorption type polarizer 531 is reflected by the second reflection polarizer 539 in this liquid crystal element, and cannot pass, so that the brightness cannot be increased.
To the contrary, in the case of the liquid crystal display device being driven so that the external light b passes through the first reflection polarizer 599 and is not reflected to be displayed in black, the polarized light a passing through the first reflection polarizer 599 and first absorption type polarizer 531 is not reflected by the second reflection polarizer 539, but passes through the same, and hence the black display becomes bright and the contrast is lowered, thereby the display quality deteriorates.
The present invention is made to solve the problems of these prior arts, and it is a first object thereof to present a double-sided display type liquid crystal display device capable of displaying a bright image of excellent display quality on both face and reverse sides.
It is a second object thereof to present an information appliance allowing to recognize a display image by one liquid crystal display device in both opened state and closed state of a second main body, without adding a new image display device.

Double-sided liquid crystal display device


A tracking system includes one or more modulated projectors configured to broadcast a plurality of signals to a plurality of tracking receivers. Each of the plurality of signals is modulated with a message. The message includes positioning information for any of the plurality of tracking receivers receiving the message. The positioning information identifies a location of one or more the tracking receivers able to receive that message.

Positioning, tracking, and navigation all represent different facets of the same problem, i.e., determining one's location relative to some reference. Many systems use radio beacons. By sensing the direction and/or distance from a radio receiver to two or more beacons, the receiver can determine its location relative to those beacons. Broadly speaking, these techniques can be applied to beacons at fixed locations on the ground, as with the VHF Omni-Directional Range (VOR) navigation system for aircraft, or to beacons located on vehicles, including satellites, such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) or Galileo.
These systems vary widely in range, coverage, accuracy, and other performance parameters. However, all such radio-based positioning receivers have a relatively high size, weight, power, and cost.
Thus, an alternative real-time position tracking system is needed.


A key management system includes secured data stored on a first system secured by a control key stored securely on a key server. The secured data is secured against attacks such as unauthorized use, modification or access, where authorization to access the secured data is determined by knowledge of an access private key of an access key pair. When an authorized user is to access the secured data, the first system generates a request to the key server, signed with the access private key, wherein the request is for a decryption control key and the request includes a one-time public key of a key pair generated by the first system for the request. The first system can decrypt the decryption control key from the response, using a one-time private key. The first system can then decrypt the secured data with the decryption control key remaining secured in transport.

Cryptography is used to secure data. In many systems, knowledge of a key allows access to the data and lack of knowledge of the key secures the data against access. Preferably, the key used to secure data is selected from a sufficiently large set of possible keys that an attacker cannot guess the key by exhaustive trial and error, even with the use of large amounts of computing resources. Usually, a key selected from a large set will be too long for people to remember, so it is necessary to employ a system that stores the key on behalf of the user and requires a passphrase to be entered before the key can be used. The passphrase, which can be a memorized password or PIN (Personal Identification Number), is typically converted directly into a cryptographic key and used to encrypt and decrypt the user's stored keys. Unfortunately, if the PIN or password is short enough for the user to remember, it is also short enough for an attacker to guess by exhaustive trial and error, thereby undermining the security of the stored key, and in turn undermining the security of the encrypted data.
One solution to the problem described above is to use central key management, wherein the keys are stored on a centralized server that is itself secured from access by attackers. When an attacker with access to a system having secured data thereon uses the brute force attack and tries each possible short passphrase, the centralized server receives a query from the system each time a passphrase is tried. Once the centralized server notices an unusual number of attempts, it can choose to ignore all further queries from that system and/or send alerts to a fraud manager or trigger alarms, if that is part of the design of the centralized server.
The use of centralized key servers to secure data is known. In a typical arrangement, the system that maintains data secured by the key (the "key client") authenticates itself to the key server and the key server authenticates itself to the key client. Following the mutual authentication, a client-server session is established wherein the client requests keys from a key server. In such an arrangement, the security of the system as a whole depends on the security of this initial authentication between client and server.

Method and apparatus for cryptographic key storage wherein key servers are authenticated by possession and secure distribution of stored keys


An asynchronous data transmission device includes a data reception terminal receiving data clocked by a sampling signal in synchronization with a local clock signal. A register is connected to the data reception terminal for receiving the data. A clock deviation measuring circuit is connected to the register for determining a number M of periods of the sampling signal appearing during K periods of a synchronization signal received on the data reception terminal, and for comparing the number M to a tolerance margin defined by a lower threshold and an upper threshold.

Asynchronous data transmissions generally include the transmission of 8-bit characters preceded by a start bit and followed by a stop bit. Conversely to synchronous data transmissions, the receiver does not receive the clock signal from the transmitter so that the respective clocks of the transmitter and of the receiver should exhibit in relation to one another a deviation not exceeding a certain value for the data to be transmitted correctly.
To increase the possibilities of asynchronous data transfer between devices exhibiting clock circuits that are not very accurate and are likely to show large deviations with time and temperature, data transmission protocols have been recently developed to enable a receiver to time its clock signal in relation to that of a transmitter by sending a synchronization character to the latter. Such protocols are consequently less demanding with regards to the deviation of the clock signal of the receiver in relation to that of the transmitter.
The phrase "local clock signal" shall designate the clock signal of the receiver, and "reference clock signal" shall designate the clock signal of the device that transmits a synchronization character. For clarification purposes, FIG. 1 represents the format of an asynchronous frame according to the protocol LIN (Local Interconnect Network) which is available on the web site www.lin-subbus.org. This frame comprises a break character BRK (stop character) comprising a set number of bits equal to 0 and a last bit equal to 1 (extra bit), a synchronization character SYNC, and data characters CH1, CH2 . . . CHN. The character CH1 serves as an identification field to enable multipoint links between a master device and slave devices.
The character SYNC is represented in more detail in FIG. 2 and is equal to [55]h in hexadecimal notation, i.e., the character 10101010 in binary (bits B0 to B7). This synchronization character is preceded by a start bit STB equal to 0 and followed by a stop bit equal to 1. In total, 5 falling edges are available to tune a local clock signal in relation to the reference clock signal of the character SYNC. The time between the 5 falling edges is equal to 8 times the period T of the reference clock signal. Measuring this duration enables one to derive the reference period T and to tune the local clock signal to the latter.
FIG. 3 represents schematically the architecture of a circuit UART enabling one to time a local clock signal CK with the clock signal of a SYNC character. The local clock signal CK is delivered by a divider DIV1, generally a divider by 16, receiving at an input a sampling signal CKS. The signal CKS is delivered by a programmable divider DIV2 receiving at an input a primary clock signal CK0. The ratio between the frequency of the signal CK0 and that of the signal CKS is determined by a value DVAL loaded in a register DREG of the programmable divider.
The circuit UART comprises a buffer circuit BUFC and a status machine SM which identifies the break and synchronization characters, and delivers information signals IS to the outside world. The outside world is, for instance, a microcontroller architecture (not represented) within which the circuit UART has been implanted. The signals IS indicate, for instance, that a character SYNC is being received, and that data received is available for writing into the circuit BUFC, etc.
The buffer circuit BUFC comprises two reception registers SREG1 and SREG2, a transmission register SREG3, a 4-bit counter CT1 (counter by 16), two logic comparators CP1 and CP2, and a circuit AVCC. The register SREG1 is a 10-bit shift register whose input SHIFT is synchronized by the signal CKS. The register SREG1 receives data RDT on a serial input SIN connected to a data reception terminal RPD, and delivers on a parallel output POUT sampled data SRDT (bits b0 to b9). The data SRDT is applied to the input of the circuit AVCC whose output delivers a bit Bi which is sent to a serial input SIN of the register SREG2. Each bit Bi delivered by the circuit AVCC is conventionally equal to the majority value of samples of ranks 7, 8 and 9 (bits b7 to b9) present in the register SREG1.
The data SRDT is also applied to an input of the comparator CPl whose other input receives a reference number 1110000000 forming criteria for detecting a falling edge. The comparator CP1 delivers a signal FEDET which is communicated to the outside world and is also applied to a reset-to-6 input (input SET6) of the counter CT1, which is clocked by the signal CKS. The counter CT1 delivers a signal SCOUNT for counting samples which are applied to an input of the comparator CP2, whose other input receives in binary form a reference number equal to 9 in base 10. The output from the comparator CP2 drives the shift input SHIFT of the register SREG2. Finally, the register SREG3 is a shift register clocked by the local clock signal CK, which receives data XDT on a parallel input PIN and delivers serial data XDT on an output SOUT connected to a terminal XPD
Detection by the UART circuit of the falling edges of a character SYNC is illustrated in FIGS. 4A to 4E, which represent respectively the data RDT, the sampling signal CKS, the signal SCOUNT, the data SRDT sampled by the register SREG1, and the signal FEDET. When the signal FEDET becomes a 1, this indicates that a falling edge is detected, and occurs when the data SRDT is equal to 1110000000. The falling edges are detected after reception of seven samples equal to 0. The counter CT1 is tuned back to the value 6 (i.e., the seventh counting cycle from 0) when the signal FEDET becomes a 1.
After reception of the character SYNC, the data present in the characters CH1, CH2 . . . is received one bit at a time. A data bit Bi is delivered by the circuit AVCC (majority value of the samples b7 to b9) which is loaded in the register SREG2 every 16 cycles of the signal CKS, i.e., at each cycle of the local clock signal CK. A bit Bi is loaded at the tenth counting cycle of the counter CT1 when the output from the comparator CP2 becomes a 1. The data received RDT is stored in the register SREG2 by a group of 8 bits B0-B7 and can be read by a parallel output POUT of that register.
The character SYNC represented in FIG. 2 enables an external calculation unit, for instance the central unit of a microcontroller, to determine the value DVAL to load in the divider DIV2 to compensate for a deviation of the local clock in relation to the reference clock. This value is such that the period Ts of the sampling signal CKS must be equal to:Ts=D/(8*16)D is the time measurement between the five falling edges of the synchronization character, i.e., eight periods T of the reference clock. DVAL can be calculated by software, or by a specific circuit with wired logic which can be associated with the status machine SM.
In spite of the advantages of re-synchronization of the clock due to the character SYNC, there is still a large deviation of the local clock which jeopardizes good reception of asynchronous frames. This is the case when the deviation of the local clock in relation to the reference clock is greater than the set tolerance margin. This tolerance margin depends on the number of bits equal to 0 of the break character BRK preceding the character SYNC.
Within the framework of the protocol LIN, this tolerance margin is ±15% since a break character comprises 13 bits equal to 0, and it is considered that a 11-bit detection at 0 is sufficient to detect the break character. Beyond this tolerance margin, reception of the character break can be inaccurate. For instance, a receiver having a local clock exhibiting a deviation greater than ±15% may believe that it is receiving a break character, whereas the character received is another character or is formed by a sequence of other characters. In such a case, clock retiring based upon the SYNC character may prove useless since the very detection of the bits of the character SYNC is uncertain. Thus, there is a need to address this shortcoming.

Device for transmitting asynchronous data having clock deviation control


A scheme to provide a spectral view of the signals present at the customer premises equipment by the network operator and includes a digital signal processor (DSP) or other signal processing apparatus integrated into a customer premises equipment (CPE) tuner in which the DSP or other signal processing apparatus is operational to perform a spectral analysis.

1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to data communication systems and methods, and more particularly to a technique for providing a spectral view of the signals present at the customer premises equipment (CPE).
2. Description of the Prior Art
In cable broadband applications, as well as in other RF applications (e.g. LMDS, MMDS), and specifically in point to multi-point applications, the network operator can strongly benefit from having a spectral view of the signals present at the customer premises equipment (CPE). In the absence of such means, the operator is forced to visit the customer's site with specialized and expensive testing equipment for maintenance and technical malfunction events.
In view of the foregoing, a need exists in cable broadband applications, other RF applications and point to multi-point applications, for a scheme to provide a spectral view of the signals present at the customer premises equipment without requiring an operator to visit the customer's site.


Provided are a system and a method for an online fan meeting. The online chat method among a first user and a plurality of second users, includes granting a bilateral chat right to a first group of users selected from the second users for participating in an online chat with the first user, authorizing an online chat communication among the first user and the first group based on the bilateral chat right, and broadcasting the online chat communication to a second group of users selected from the second users. The second group is granted with a unilateral chat right.

1. Field
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to a system and a method for providing a meeting service using an online chat service.
2. Discussion of the Background
Generally, a messenger program relates to a communication tool that enables real-time transmission and reception of messages or data through software installed on a user terminal. A typical messenger program allows a user to register a chat partner and to exchange messages with chat partners included in a contact list, in real time.
Korean Patent Application Publication No. 10-2007-0031099, published on Mar. 19, 2007, discloses a method for offering a chat service in an instant messenger program of a mobile communication terminal. Messenger programs are widely adopted not only in a personal computer (PC) but also in a mobile communication terminal, such as a smartphone, tablet computer, and the like.
In order to hold a fan meeting for fans of a public figure or celebrity, for example, an actor, an actress, an athlete, and a singer, a location capable of accommodating a great number of fans and a considerable period of time are needed.
Thus, there is a need for a fan meeting service that can be provided without constraints of a set location or time.

System and method for online fan meeting


To prevent an electrostatic discharge in transistors constituting a driving circuit built in a substrate. The shift register and the level shifter constituting a scanning line driving circuit include TFT elements respectively which employing the polysilicon layer formed on the element substrate as a semiconductor layer. Each TFT element constituting the level shifter has a gate electrode opposing the channel region of the polysilicon layer with an insulating layer interposed therebetween. Each polysilicon layer is shared by a plurality of TFT elements with being separated from each other. The total area ‘S’ of each polysilicon layer which opposes the gate electrode of the TFT element is 3000 μm2 or less.

This invention relates to a technology for displaying a picture using various kinds of electro-optical elements, such as a liquid crystal and an OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) element.
An electro-optical device, such as a liquid crystal device, has a plurality of pixels arranged on the surface of a substrate having an insulating property, and a driving circuit for supplying a driving signal to these pixels. Further, a structure has been proposed where a transistor constituting a driving circuit is formed on the surface of a substrate by SOI (Silicon On Insulator) technology. This kind of electro-optical device is called a driver built-in type electro-optical device, and has various advantages such as reduced manufacture cost, compared to the electro-optical device whose IC chip including a driving circuit is mounted on the substrate. In a driver built-in type electro-optical device, a polysilicon layer is employed as a semiconductor layer for each transistor constituting a driving circuit.

Electro-optical device, driving circuit, and electronic apparatus


Disclosed herein are nonionic vitamin E or polyethoxylated vitamin E derivatives represented by the following formula (I) and a method for the preparation thereof, and polymeric amphiphilic vesicles made therefrom. ##STR1## wherein, n is an integer from 0 to 30, inclusive;. A is --CH.sub.2 --CH(CH.sub.3)-- or --CH.dbd.C(CH.sub.3)--;. B is --CH.sub.3 at the 5-, 7- or 8- position;. m is 1, 2, or 3; and. R is residue of acrylate or methacrylate derivatives represented by the following formula (II); ##STR2## wherein, R.sub.1 is H or CH.sub.3.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to nonionic vitamin E derivatives capable of forming polymeric amphiphilic vesicles and to a method for the preparation thereof. More particularly, it relates to nonionic vitamin E or polyethoxylated vitamin E derivatives capable of forming polymeric amphiphilic vesicles which show an excellent thermodynamic stability, a compatibility in the living body and a physiological activity such as anti-oxidative effect, and to a method for the preparation thereof, and to polymeric amphiphilic vesicles made therefrom.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Various oily materials such as triglycerides, fatty acid esters or paraffins have been widely used as emollients in cosmetics and skin ointments for external applications, in order to prevent the evaporation of moisture from the skin. However, the cosmetics or skin ointments containing these oily materials further require an use of surfactants, in order to compensate poor compatibility thereof with water or water miscible components which are used as a base component for the cosmetics and skin ointments.
A surfactant is an amphiphilic or amphiphatic molecule having both a lyophobic group and a lyophilic group. That is, it consists of a long alkyl chain containing polar groups. Also, surfactant show a surface activity in solutions and forms aggregates of molecules or ions which are called micelles, when the concentration of the surfactant solute in the bulk of the solution exceeds a critical value, the so-called critical micelle concentration. The micelles may have spherical, cylindrical or plate shapes and can solubilize water-insoluble materials in the aqueous solution.
Besides, there are many natural amphiphilic biological compounds such as glycolipids, proteins, phospholipids, saponins and bile acids. These compounds are referred to "bio-surfactants", due to their source origin and surface active property. Because of surface activity, they can be easily solubilized in water and the other aqueous solutions so that they may exhibit effectively their physiological activities and make an absorption of other materials easy. In particular, phospholipids are components of the membrane lipid and can form liposomes easily since they have a hydrophobic group consisted of two aliphatic chains. Also, they have an excellent safety and moisture retention activity since they are constituent components of the biological cells. However, phospholipids may be easily oxidized to form peroxides due to the double bondings in the molecule and thereby causing damages to the cells. Consequently, they may promote the aging.
Therefore, there have been extensive studies and discussions for the development of a new material capable of forming vesicles similar to liposome formed by the phospholipids.
Since surfactants can have a vesicle-forming ability only when it has two alkyl chains and a balanced hydrophobic and hydrophilic property, the research for surfactants has been concentrated on the development of synthetic amphiphilic compounds.
J. M. Gebicki and M. Hicks reported in 1975 for the first time the formation of bilayered-membrane structure of the vesicles formed by using synthetic amphiphilic materials. This bilayered-membrane structure was formed by shaking a thin film of oleic acid and linoleic acid in an aqueous buffer. However, this closed membrane structure of bilayer is only stable in pH 6.about.8 and can not be concentrated by, for example centrifugation.
Thereafter, Kunitake et al. reported vesicles formed by dispersing of dialkyldimethylammonium and dihexadecylphosphate by ultrasonic treatment. The obtained vesicles are stable in the over pH range. However, these synthetic surfactant vesicles have a poor thermodynamic stability and may be easily agglutinated and then precipitated during a long term storage. This restricts the application of synthetic surfactant vesicles.
Recently, the polymerization of vesicles was proposed to improve the stability of synthetic vesicles. Besides, the "ploysoap" which is a polymerized amphiphilic molecules having a single alkyl chain had been also reported.
Therefore, the present inventors have conducted extensive studies to develop new polymeric amphiphilic vesicles. Their studies based on the fact that the vitamin E or polyethoxylated vitamin E derivatives have an excellent compatibility in the living body, surfactantivity, anti-oxidative action such as protective action against oxidation or UV in the skin or hair, and anti-inflammatory action, as well as have a sufficient hydrophobicity and orientation property to be served as hydrophobic group for forming vesicles. As a result, they proposed cationic vitamin E or polyethoxylated vitamin E derivatives obtained by introducing a cationic group of quaternary nitrogen into vitamin E or polyethoxylated vitamin E, and polymeric amphiphilic vesicles made therefrom. As expected, the proposed cationic vitamin E or polyethoxylated vitamin E derivatives have an excellent vesicles-forming ability. However, due to their cationic property, they showed a bad compatibility with anionic or amphipathic components in the living body. On the basis of this failure, they again proposed nonionic vitamin E or polyethoxylated vitamin E derivatives obtained by introducing acrylate, methacrylate or crotonate derivatives into vitamin E or polyethoxylated vitamin E, and polymeric amphiphilic vesicles made therefrom. However, the nonionic derivatives lack an anti-oxidative action preventing the oxidation of physiological active materials.
Under this circumstance, the present inventors have made research to provide a solution for the above problem. As a result, they found that nonionic polymeric amphiphilic vesicles could be obtained by controlling the reaction temperature and the amount of reactants in introducing allyl derivatives containing an amino group into vitamin E or polyethoxylated vitamin E derivatives. They proved that the proposed nonionic vesicles show an excellent thermodynamic stability, a compatibility in the living body and a physiological activity such as anti-oxidative effect.

Nonionic vitamin E derivatives and a method for the preparation thereof, and polymeric ampliphilic vesicles made therefrom


A bump stop seat structure which can achieve a larger cabin space in the room of a vehicle or automobile without sacrificing a bump stroke by suppressing roll angle. In the bump stop seat structure, a stop seat (12) is provided on a housing (6) of an axle (2) of the vehicle in such a manner as to face a bump stop (9) mounted on a body (1) thereof. Further, a flat end face (13), which is nearly level and faces upwardly, is provided on one of opposite side portions of the stop seat (12), which are arranged in the direction of width of the vehicle. Moreover, a convex part (14) projecting to the bump stop (9) is provided only on a part of the other side portion of the stop seat (12). Thus, the convex part (14) is in contact with the bump stop (9) only when the vehicle performs a rolling movement.

1. Field of The Invention
The present invention relates to a bump stop (or stopper) seat structure of a suspension of a vehicle.
2. Description of The Related Art
FIG. 4 is a perspective view of an ordinary conventional axle suspension. FIGS. 5 and 6 are front views of primary parts of a bump stop seat structure of a conventional suspension for illustrating an operation thereof. The conventional axle suspension is provided with left and right coil springs 4, 4 and shock absorbers 5, 5, which are interposed between the bottom portion of an automobile body 1 (see FIG. 5) and an axle 2 and thus connect the body 1 to wheels 3 through the axle 2 to thereby suspend the wheels 3 and so on. The wheels 3 are attached to both ends of the axle 2, respectively, and further, a stop (or stopper) seat 7 is provided on each end portion of an axle housing 6 of the axle 2 (see FIGS. 4 and 5).
This stop seat 7 has a top end face 7a, which is normally level and flat and faces upwardly, as shown in FIG. 7. When the coil spring 4 is compressed as a result of what is called a stroke rolling movement or motion (namely, a stroke of a rolling movement) of the axle 2 and the wheels 3 acting as one body, which is caused by centrifugal force undergone by the automobile during cornering, the flat end face 7a comes in contact with a bump stop 9 mounted on the bottom portion of the automobile body 1. Consequently, a tire 8 is prevented from bumping the automobile body 1.
Further, when one of the side portions of the vehicle (or automobile) has traveled the maximum (or upper) limit of what is called a bump stroke (namely, the moving range of the suspension) and thus the bump stop seat 7 is in contact with the bump stop 9 and moreover, this side portion of the vehicle does not continue this stroke (or movement), the other side portion of the vehicle is brought into what is called a full roll state in which the coil spring of this side portion thereof is stretched to full length.
However, in the conventional bump stop seat structure, when the position C.sub.1 of the roll center (in the case of FIG. 5) is lowered to the position C.sub.2 thereof by a distance H, as illustrated in FIG. 6, in order to reduce a change due to scuffs formed on the coil spring, the following change occurs. Namely, the rolling movement causes the tire 8 to go inwardly in the direction of width of the vehicle (namely, in the transverse direction thereof). However, the displacement L.sub.2 in the transverse direction of the tire 8 in the case of FIG. 6 is larger than that L.sub.1 in the transverse direction thereof in the case of FIG. 5. Thus, the conventional bump stop seat structure has a problem in that the clearance or gap S.sub.2 between the side surface 1a of the room (or cabin), which is on the side of the body 1, of the vehicle and the inner side surface 8a of the tire 8 in the case of FIG. 6 is smaller than the gap S.sub.1 therebetween in the case of FIG. 5 and that the interior width should be reduced by the decreased amount of the gap.
The present invention is accomplished to solve the foregoing problem of the conventional bump seat structure.


This invention is a recording head cartridge which includes a plurality of inks having a density difference for an ink of one color, includes recording heads on a single substrate or in an adjacent aligned state, and integrates ink tanks for the plurality of inks, so as to reliably perform gradation recording while achieving a simple control circuit, and improvement in operability upon replacement. This invention also provides a structure in which ink tanks in the cartridge are integrated to determine a light/depth printing order, and have different volumes so as to improve advantages of replacement.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording head cartridge which integrates an ink-jet recording head and an ink storing unit for storing an ink to be supplied to the recording head.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recording apparatuses ordinarily used in printers or facsimile systems perform recording on the basis of binary recording data indicating whether or not a dot is present on a pixel. When an original image having many different density levels such as a photograph, a print, a painting, or the like is to be reproduced, any difference between the densities of dots forming a recording image becomes conspicuous, and the image exhibits graininess. In particular, in a highlight portion, this tendency is considerable.
For this reason, an ink-jet recording apparatus of a density multi-value recording system using light and deep inks, and capable of converting the densities of dots to be jetted to a recording medium into multi-values is proposed. According to the density multi-value recording system, when binary data expressing a density is merely converted to three-value data, gradation of a recording image, in particular, gradation of a highlight portion is improved, and graininess caused by dots can be eliminated. As a result, image quality of a recording image can be improved.
In an ink-jet recording apparatus, a proposal has been made for solving a problem caused by an arrangement wherein a recording head for discharging an ink, and an ink storing unit (to be simply referred to as an ink tank hereinafter) are separately arranged. More specifically, since an ink tube or the like is used to supply an ink from the ink tank to the recording head, dust or air enters through connecting portions or the like of this tube, and becomes dust or bubbles in an ink, thus posing a problem of impaired stability of ink discharge. In addition, a cumbersome operation is required to connect a supply tube when the ink tank or the recording head is replaced, and it is difficult to prevent the entrance of bubbles into the ink upon tank or head replacement. Thus, in order to prevent these problems, a recording head cartridge which integrates the recording head and the ink tank has been proposed.
The recording head cartridge is also especially attractive in view of the fact that latest recording heads can be mass-produced at low cost by the same processes used in semiconductor device manufacturing processes. More specifically, with this integrated structure, when the supply of ink is exhausted, the old cartridge is replaced with a new recording head cartridge integrated with a recording head, and the old recording head and ink tank can be disposed.
In the density multi-value recording system using the above-mentioned ink-jet recording apparatus, the dot size of the light and deep inks, the pitches of light and deep ink dots, the dye densities of the light and deep inks, and the like are optimized, thereby decreasing the dye density of the light ink as much as possible. The dye density of the deep ink is increased to increase an optical density, and a density jump occurring at an interface between the light and deep inks is prevented while improving gradation.
Recording systems are known which can satisfy the above-mentioned requirements, using a method wherein a dark ink having a higher dye density is jetted first, then the dye density is sequentially lowered, and finally, a light ink having a lowest dye density is jetted. With this method, a high-gradation, high-resolution, and high-quality image free from graininess can be obtained.
However, when full-color recording is performed by the above-mentioned recording head cartridge arrangement, two types of, i.e., light and deep ink cartridges must be prepared for each of cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (B) inks, and a carriage which carries a total of eight cartridges to perform scanning movement for recording becomes large in size.
Since recording head cartridges for light and deep inks cannot be integrated with each other, when light and deep ink cartridges of the same color are simultaneously replaced (one ink is rarely used alone), this becomes a cumbersome operation.
Since the operation between an orifice array for discharging a light ink and that for discharging a deep ink inevitably becomes large, a long period of time is required after the deep ink is discharged until the light ink is discharged. In order to perform synchronization between recording data sent from a host apparatus or the like and ink discharge during this period of time, the capacity of a buffer memory for temporarily storing these data must be increased, and cost of the entire apparatus is increased.
Since the separation between the orifice arrays is large, when light and deep inks are jetted to overlap each other, the light ink often overlaps the deep ink after the deep ink is absorbed. In this case, graininess caused by deep ink dots appears, and the image quality of the density multi-value recording system is compromised.
Furthermore, as for the separation between the orifice arrays, since the light and deep ink cartridges are not integrated, as described above, the separation therebetween may be changed upon replacement of cartridges, and this change comprises image quality of a recorded image.
When such recording is performed, it is well known to use the light ink used as frequently as is possible in order to obtain a high-gradation, high-resolution image free from graininess. Therefore, when high image quality of the density multi-value recording system and a cartridge structure of a recording head and an ink tank in consideration of operability are realized at the same time, it will be necessary to replace the cartridge for the light ink more frequently than it will be necessary to replace that for the dark ink.
When replacing the light ink cartridge, the deep ink cartridge must also be replaced (the deep ink is rarely used alone), resulting in waste of the cartridge, which still contains ink.
In order to avoid such waste, a cartridge may have a light ink tank having an increased tank volume. With this structure, however, a difference in tank shape causes a difference in the distance between the heads (the distance between the discharge ports) of the light and deep inks, and the capacity of a buffer memory for performing synchronization between a supply timing of recording data and an ink discharge timing must be further increased, thus posing a new problem.
When a volume difference is compensated for by a flexible ink tank, the cartridges cannot be moved with precision upon recording, and this structure impairs an easy handling feature of the cartridge.

Ink jet recording by superimposing inks of different densities